About the Book:
This is a work about our very existence, about Reality, about the relationship between the individual personality and the cosmos in which that personality exists, showing how the person is a microcosm, a little part of the cosmos, subtly reflecting his 'world' however autonomous or independent he may believe he is. It intends to resolve the central problems of Eastern and Western philosophy, the question of the meaning of the mystical union and the question, which has arisen in the modern West, of the relationship between consciousness and the so-colled 'physical world'.
The final essay presenting the Science-Mysticism synthesis, provides a convenient basic framework for convenient basic framework for categorizing the various aspects of yogic mysticism which are often jumbled together haphazardly by uneducated holy men and commentators who often have little appreciation of the real significance of the various mystical realizations.
About the Author:
SUTAPAS BHATTACHARYA was born in Guahati, Assam, India in 1964. His family moved to London in 1967 where he has lived ever since. His formal education led to a First Class Honours degree in Molecular Biology from London University in 1986 with prizes from his college for top student in the school of Biological Sciences in both the second and final year of his studies.
Since graduation he has worked in scientific publishing. He continued to develop his interest in the philosophical questions relating to Science.
Working for a major international publishing company, he has amazed academics in numerous scientific disciplines with his claim to have identified the physical correlate of the Divine Light, the Pure Consciousness of Indian Philosophy, with a physical process well-known to Science.
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
The Lyricism of a Philosopher
The creation of the sutra
Traditional elite transcendentalism versus superficial mass culture
The 'true brahman' and Western academic mythologies
The 'true philosopher' and social concerns
Human variation and the pursuit of so-called happiness
The social utility of the philosopher
Narrow-minded dogmatism in modern scientific scholasticism
The Reassertion of the Indian
Neo-Hinduism, Brahmanism and Indian Nationalism
A continuation of the Indian approach to philosophy
Western attitudes to Indian thought
The bigotry of the scientific establishment
Jung as a bridge between East and West
Metaphysics as the study of 'the world as a whole'
The feminine aspects of the Self
Scientific modernization and Indian Nationalist aspirations
Western humanistic rhetoric and Indian Nationalism
Indian Nationalism and Neo-colonialism
Indian spirituality and Western social materialism
Pernicious Western relativism and universal degeneration
Hopes for a future Universal Civilisation
My bonds to Bharat Mata
The Bigger Deeper Picture
The materialist creed
Idealism and the transcendental realm
The Sanatana Dharma
Understanding Science from the deeper perspective
THE SUTRA (Aphoristic verses) I. This Oneness / Otherness Mystery
II. And Both Was I
III. Rashtra is My Word for Nation
IV. Bonds of Kinship
V. Two Two-legged Human Races
VI. Thou Art the Reason
VII. We are Two Branches of One River
VIII. Bande Mataram
IX. Satanic Mills
X. Lebensratum
XI. Indo-Europe
XI(a). Chol Dilli
XI(b). Old Indian Air
XI(c). A Nation Born Through Synthesis
XII. No sure Ground
XIII. That One
XIII(a). Tad Ekam
XIII(b). Tat tuam asi
XIV. Mind Games
XV. This One
XVI. The Web Intricate
COMMENTARY (Notes to the verses)
Postscript to the Sutra
IN THIS AGE OF FALLING CURTAINS
The Historical Message of the Work
Western mythology and Indian reality
The modernization and globalisation of Indian civilization
Western universalist pretensions
Historical development relativism
The interchange of ideas
Two integrating Themes
The individual as a microacosm
The 'true brahman' and the 'world of banias'
Tow Two-legged Human Races
Post-colonial changes in Western perceptions
International solidarity against colonialism
Differing politico-historical perspectives in Asia and the West
International repercussions of internal class struggles
Thou Art the Reason & We are Two Branches of One River
The male-female dyad and the 'feminine' Hindu Mind
Masculine 'imperialism' and historical progress
Patriarchal institutions and the status of women
Negative and positive manifestations of male tendencies
Bande Mataram
Market Forces and the Nation - the modern gods
The Green Revolution and the rise of Backward castes
The politics of accommodation
Secularism in India
Scientific modernization, development and social justice
The rejection of simplistic Christian Humanism
Learning lessons from China
Asian social values versus the 'Free market'
Satanic Mills
The savage birth of the Capitalist world market
The Ruin of Bengal and the Industrial Revolution
Economic development in the Cold War
The Bengal Famine of 1942-3: A British-inflicted holocaust
Lebensraum
European savagery in the Americans and Australia
US settler colonialist imperialism and Nazi parallels
Chol Dilli
British myths about the End of Empire
Bengali bhadralok nationalism and Gandhian nationalism
Defending the actions of Subhas Bose
Old Indian Air
Indomania and the second European Renaissance
Continuing Indian influences upon the West
The Philistinism of the English establishment
A Nation Born through Synthesis
The sword and the pen of resurgent Hinduism
Origins of the Bengali Renaissance
The introduction of English education
The use of English in independent India
Bankim and the regeneration of Indian culture
Racial discrimination and the rise of nationalism
The influence of France and Soviet Russia
No Sure Ground
The globalisation of the Capitalist industrial phenomenon
Mass market society and cultural degeneration
Hereditary myths, elitism and consumerism
American culture imperialism and India's strategic interests
Prelude to the metaphysical essay
THE ONENESS / OTHERNESS MYSTERY
Part One: My Path to the Light
My Metaphysical Thought up to 1994
My teenage encounters with the metaphysics
My panpsychist theory of 1983
The 1987 paper on consciousness
The encounter with Indian philosophy
Moksa and Near-Death Experiences: An intuitive leap
Learning the meaning of Spirit
The Developments of 1994
Learning from Jung and synchronicities
Learning the significance of the Light
Divine Light, Nothingness and Saccidananda
Scientific perplexity over the Light
The puzzle of coherent alpha rhythm
Zen meditation and alchemy
The Light as experienced in the slow paths
Eureka
Part Two: The Emerging Picture
2(a) A Few Historical Western Misconceptions
The Christian myth of Creation ex nihilo and Spirit / Nature dualism
Mystical influences on early science
Kant's a priori dismissal of Mysticism
Freud and the uterine myth
Jung's reduction of the spiritual to the psychic
Bohm, Pribram and the Holographic / Holonomic Metaphor
2(b) Brain Deactivation, Coherent Alpha Rhythm and Death
EEG coherence, meditation and brain death
Some Materialist pseudo-explanations
Subcortical and brainstem involvement in mysticism
2(c) The Mind as a Self-Organising Process
Dissipative structures and the brain
Auto-reverberation and lucidity
Individuated complexes and Multiple Personality Disorders
2(d) Energy and Consciousness
Origins and nature of the concepts of energy
Energy and matter in mysticism and altered states of consciousness
The Prana / Atman relationship
2(e) The Interface of Mind and Cosmos (Phenomenology and Ontology)
Microcosm / macrocosm, analogy and projection
Realms of potentialities, actualization and transcendental causation
Mythology, ignorance, prophets, icons and scripture in modern science
Broadening perception and shifting frames of reference
2(f) On the Emergence of Time and Space
LSD experience and dimensionality
The time / space matrix of perception
Cosmic and microcosmic space-time emergence in Quantum Theory and Holonomic models
Energetic vibrations, phase-locking and Time as the process of Creation
2(g) Self-luminous, Self-limiting, Active/Passive, Universal Consciousness
Self-luminosity
The Unmoved Mover
Mind moments and undivided wholeness
Self-limitation and Maya
2(h) The World-Creating Vibrations
Matter as energetic vibrations in physics
The wave-like fluctuations of the mindstuff
Contemplating the reality underlying scientific abstractions
The Vibratory Creation and the Big Bang hypothesis
2(i) The Planes of Consciousness and Yogic Sleep
The Light as the all-pervading Ground
The development of lucidity
Increasing freedom and creativity in dream-like states
Shifts in perceptual focus and the subject / object distinction
2(j) Creativity, Lawfulness, Freedom and Insight
The Christian myths of the Laws of Nature
Transcendental creativity and emergent habits
Mechanistic, holistic and transcendental perspectives on free will and Life
Human creativity, intuition and gnosis
Knowledge by identity and divine realizations
2(k) On Paranormal Phenomena
The siddhis (supernormal powers) and space-time transcendence
Aurobindo on psychical development and the subtle ether
The subtle ether and the notion of resonance
Human body fields and psychic phenomena
Quantum non-locality and actualization of phenomena evidence for a transcendental realm
Academic Parapsychology: The failings of mimicking physical science
Clairvoyant reality and the mystery of 'normal' reality
The myth of psychical energy in relation to space-time transcendence
The involvement of the atman
Jahn and Dunne on psychokinesis
Walker on quantum uncertainties and psychic phenomena
Imagination, resonance of form and physical manifestations
2(l) On Mind-Body Interactions
The Cartesian split in medicine and the rediscovery of pranic healing
Reductionist myths and the mysterious 'life force'
Fields and 'downward causation' in the Placebo effect and hands-on healing
Conventional and paranormal processes in pranic healing
Psychosomatic processes and body-organizing fields
The misunderstanding of vitalistic and transcendentalist notions
The organism as a coherent, emergent space-time structure
Psychoneuroimmunology and visualization in mind-body interactions
2(m) On Notions Relating to Karma
Origins of the Classical Karma and Rebirth doctrines
Eradication of habitual memory traces (samskara) in Patanjali Yoga
Karma as avidya / maya and transmigration as dependent co-origination
Events as the moment of death
Insights from Rajneesh on Karma and Rebirth
Insight from LSD psychotherapy on Karma and the mythology of Rebirth
Reincarnation phenomena and parapsychological approaches to 'Afterlife Survival'
A consistent interpretation of past-life memories, 'liberation' and supposed reincarnation phenomena
The general meaning of Karma
2(n) Some Concluding Remarks
The glaring absurdity of Materialism
The modern West's subliminal Christian legacy
The incompatibility of theistic religion and the perennial wisdom
The 'Eternal Truth' of the Sanatana Dharma
What am I why am I here?
Bibliography
Index