Young-Adult Retreat at Vedanta Society of Providence

 By Aishanee Acharyya

This was my first year attending the Young Adult Retreat, and I had a really fulfilling experience. This year, the theme of the camp, or guiding question, was “Who Am I?” and I was very confused about what this meant when I first heard it. While I still can’t say I am 100% sure on the answer, since the answer is impossible to truly ‘know,’ I do feel that I have gotten a much clearer understanding of it. From books and previous lectures, I knew that there was an infinite force within us, but I didn’t understand it or know how to use that knowledge of inner divinity in my life. We learned about the balance of enthusiasm and wisdom, which I found to be very interesting, because that is so important for anything we want to pursue at this stage in our life. We may have enthusiasm, but without the wisdom we won’t be able to put our enthusiasm to proper, beneficial use. I had enthusiasm about furthering my spiritual journey, but I think the wisdom I gained from the retreat is what I will take away the most. For example, the understanding of all of us being one really makes me think about how feelings like jealousy, greed, and selfishness have no place in our lives.

Dr. Bose on Living and Non-Living

 By Juhi Wagle

Dr. J. C. Bose began research on radio waves, followed by electrographic responses of “living” and “non-living” matter. He developed many instruments to record these responses, the finest of which was the crescograph, which has a magnifying power of 10 million. Dr. Bose subjected animal skins, plant skins, and metals to various stimuli (light, temperature, plucking, pricking, drugging) and found little difference between the responses. In 1902, he published a paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living,” where he made a controversial conclusion that the distinction between living and non-living beings is arbitrary and quoted from the Rig Veda, saying that this truth was known to his ancestors all along.

This, however, led many scientists to question his integrity as a scientist. During Bose’s time India was under British rule. Britishers believed that while Indians were adept in languages and metaphysics, they had no aptitude for science; that Indians did not possess the requisite temperament for exact sciences. And this notion spread. Many felt that Bose’s deep philosophical convictions "possibly motivated him to take mental leaps to arrive at some of his scientific conclusions." Bose’s quoting of the Vedas is seen as "perhaps the most pointed evidence" attesting to his philosophical bias. He was accused of "allowing his metaphysics to intrude upon his scientific writings." Some went so far as to declare his conclusions more poetic than scientific.

Free Will vs. Maya as the Reason for Suffering

By Charles Feldman (Prana)

Most monotheists believe in free will. They think that Adam and Eve knew that they were doing something bad, and that they were deceived into thinking that they could get away with it. Correspondingly, fundamentalists think that people who do not adhere to their particular brand of religion know that they are doing something bad. 

My contention is that in all religions and ideologies, people who sincerely believe in them believe that they are doing the right thing. So, if they are being deceived, they are being deceived into believing that they are doing the right thing. If that is the case, they do not have free will, because if someone is deceived into doing something that they sincerely believe is right, and they are actually doing something bad, they are not doing bad of their own free will, because as far as they know, they are doing the right thing. This defeats the argument that the reason for suffering is that God loves people so much that He gives them free will. Even if you were to say that the devil is deceiving people, the fact that they are being deceived means that they do not have free will, unless they are knowingly doing something bad, which, from my experience, is not the case for sincere believers in all faiths. I know intellectually that fundamentalists do not have the free will to see this, even though it feels like they should be able to. It seems so simple.

Life of a Virus

By Juhi Wagle

Blog editor's note:  This post is a reflection on and an elaboration of Swami Yogatmananda's talk, "Life of a Virus":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyMTX7XFxGU&t=463s

The recent epidemic has brought viruses back into the public spotlight, along with the age-old question, “are viruses alive?” Even with all the advancements in biology and virology, biologists remain divided on this point. Some deny viruses are alive, because viruses do not have a metabolic system and are incapable of independent replication. Others refute this argument by showing that viruses, much like seeds, have life “latent” in them. In the right environment, they grow and replicate. Furthermore, they evolve – which is one of NASA’s main criteria to classify as “living.” Some others say that the answer depends on how one defines life.

So, the first issue is to agree upon a definition for “life.” What can be considered “living”? Observing life around us, biologists have identified 7 properties of life. While non-living objects may satisfy some of these, only living beings satisfy them all. While this is a good starting point, it is handicapping. Firstly, it has been proven that all life on earth can be traced back to a single ancestor. We are drawing our defining properties from a sample set of 1. This is potentially unrepresentative of life in the universe. Because we are limiting “life” to “life found on Earth,” there might be life on some other planet that we wouldn’t even recognize as such, as it is so different from our own.

Poems

By Joan Chadbourne

Our Love in All Art Thou

Joy, light and peace Thou art –
Our love in All art Thou –
Bring us all to you.
Our hearts, minds, bodies, souls
All art one in Thee!
May we dance and sing Thy Truth!
May our minds be Thine –
All encompassing, all embracing Thy Love.
May we all be singing Thy praises whole heartedly.
May we be Thy selfless loving servants – always!
Thy instruments of love and peace – unfolding Thy Truth.
Thou art in all!

Against the Idea of Eternal Hell Based on Free Will

By Charles Feldman (Prana)

Vedanta says that we are all divine. This makes sense, but I sometimes wonder: What if we are making a mistake, and those who say that if we don't belong to their creed, we are going to eternal hell, are right?
 
The argument that Christians usually give for suffering and eternal hell is that we have free will, and in order to bless people with free will, God allows suffering.

I have read two Christian versions of what happens in eternal hell. One version says that those in hell regret what they have done, but it is too late to change things by that time. The other version says that those in hell never change, and they eternally continue to reject God.

The Cause of All Our Problems: Three Views

By Charles (Prana) Feldman

Those who believe that they have the only valid religious path may say that disobedience is the cause of all of our problems. They may go so far as to say that there is a war going on in the world between their version of their religion and everyone else. They may even say that if we don't obey their authority, we go to hell.

Those opposed to religion may say that obedience is the cause of all of our problems. They may say that religion causes sectarian violence, the destruction of the environment, and racism, sexism, and homophobia. They believe that we need to ditch religion if humanity is to have any hope of surviving in the world.

There is another point of view, which is that of Vedanta. Ignorance, or finitude, causes all of our problems. Vedanta says that the world is God's play. If there were no bad guys, there would be no good guys. Nothing in the finite world is all good or all bad. Nothing in the finite world is permanent. What we need to do is to realize our identity with God, the Infinite, or Satchidananda, and we will attain immortality as pure Being, Awareness, and Bliss.