The Physics of Karma: A Requiem To Time

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Sri Ramanashramam, Tiruvannamalai, South India, is the hallowed shrine where Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi lived for 50 years as the Enlightened One.

Dwaraknath Reddy made his home there in 1983. He was Chairman and Managing Director of Nutrine Confectionery Co., which he helped found with his father in the 50's. Through his dedication he nurtured it into the national leader in that industry.

But for many years his greater urge was to know the meaning, direction, purposes and possibilities of all of Life in terms of Ultimate Reality, and to experience the core-truth of oneself. The spoken and written words of Teachers and Sages convinced him that Self-Enquiry alone could be his strength and salvation. With absolutely no conflict, and indeed reinforced by this awareness, he blended his worldly duties and his spiritual aspirations. And as soon as he could hand over the responsibilities to the younger generation he had groomed, he moved into retreat. "I could appoint managers to run that business. Could I appoint a manager to run the inner business of Self-Enquiry?", he asks.

With a Master of Science degree from Louisiana State University (USA), he brings a scientific, rational approach to intricate expositions, leading the reader to logical conclusions which the reader can evaluate in terms of personal experience. He reveals the Science of Life.

The Physics of Karma is a challenging book, Important concepts in the physico- mental complex of life are examined and pushed to their ultimates, all of which disappear into the dimensions of the Self. But on that account the discussion is not philosophy or metaphysics. It has a vibrancy of Art and Aesthetics celebrating the Beauty and Harmony of the Eternal on Earth. Human language fails on the frontiers of the thinking mind and the author wisely lets the awesome Silence prevail. His Love for the Master who holds his soul captive breaks into lyrical prose dissolving the reader into a bewitching Beatitude.

This is as far as Thought can go. The restraint which the author imposes on himself is itself an education.

All science is disciplined observation leavened by insight: beginning with particular experience and common sense, science arrives at general and uncommon sense. In this sense, everyone is a scientist, but most of the time we do not proceed far enough, nor do we bring the discipline on to much of our experience.

In these musings, Sri Dwaraknath Reddy has given us a chance to share his experiences and he invites us to analyse our own. His similes and metaphors are contemporary. I found this to be very helpful.

Many sincere scholars seem to be of the opinion that only objective experience can be subject of scientific analysis and communication. They overlook the fact that reproducible reliable subjective experiences can be communicated and evoked. Dwaraknath shows us by example how this is to be done.

While I was at first surprised by the title, The Physics of Karma, on reflection I found it to be a very appropriate choice. I am pleased to introduce this book to the scientific spirit of enquiry in all of you, professional scientist and layman alike.

When I listened attentively to a discourse on Vedantic philosophy for the first time in my life, I was aged thirty-five, a committed and ambitious entrepreneur, willing to fight a clean battle for my share of what could be legitimately acquired in a fiercely competitive world. But ever so recently I had to stand by as a mute witness to the sudden death of a beloved brother, felled in his prime by an invisible unprovoked assailant, while we were robbed all our defences. Dazed and benumbed, sinking in a sea of helplessness, I knew what I was supposed to comfort myself with: "It is Fate", was the refrain heard before, "What has to happen will happen. Time is the great healer. Life must go on. Have faith in God......"

But there was a revolt against my total helplessness, against the sense of being summarily dealt with on unequal terms, denied explanation or a glimpse of understanding. My problem had exploded beyond the confines of that gloomy room, beyond the personal tragedy of one bereavement, beyond the answers of medical science whose speculations could only be chemistry - I was now intensely concerned with all the energies and capabilities and purposes of Life that succumbed to the higher might of Death. Can man arrive at an understanding of life which shall enable him not merely to ACCEPT Death (or, for that matter, all happenings) but to APPROVE its methodology and operation? My brother has died; where is the question of my not accepting it? I want to know whether there is a meaning and a rightness to the occurrence, such meaning and rightness as are the truths of the laws of energy. Gravity, electricity, magnetism are energies; they are forces whose workings science understands and concerning which postulates laws that are consistently valid. If I cannot see law and order in the manipulations of life, what meaning can there be in platitudes of Fate and Faith and God? Are they not all palliatives?