 We'll have a moment of silence, and then we'll move to the mother's question for the medical station and through all of it. You can start. So, yesterday at Ponte Litvist, I gave a talk, a brief talk on the harmony of art and science in Sri Aurobindo and Subramaniya Bharati. I will give an expanded version of that talk now, essentially. It is about how we can use Sri Aurobindo's and Magagavis-Bramaniya Bharati's poetries to create a harmony between science and art and use it in the educational system for our children. Should I be stopping, or can I continue? Now, it was in 1959. Nine years after the Maga Samati of Maga Yogishtri Aurobindo, a book appeared in the West. The title of the book was The Two Cultures and Scientific Revolution. It was written by C.P. Snow, who was a scientist as well as a man of letters, a novelist. The essence of the book is that the scientific tradition and the literary tradition, they are not having any kind of interaction. They are not having any kind of harmony and hence the society in which science is becoming more and more important is itself becoming somewhat defunct, dysfunctional and disharmonious. Later, he brought out a second edition. In that second edition, he told that there was a third culture coming up. This was in the early 1960s, the second edition came. The second edition, C.P. Snow said that a third culture is coming up in which there is actually an exchange between an interaction between scientific tradition and the literary tradition. And he also pointed out that there is a strong resistance to this from, and he was surprised, from the so-called liberal establishment. They didn't like this actually, that scientific tradition and the literary tradition are coming together and he was actually surprised. Now, my contention is that, decades before C.P. Snow, in the poetry of Maga Yogishtri Arabindo and in the poetry of Subramanya Bharati, this third culture was already there. Unfortunately, when the West worked forward towards this third culture in the form of basically science fiction and also dynamic art, when they were doing all those things, in the case of India, despite the fact that we have these treasures, we have not used them, we have underutilized them, sometimes we have squandered them. So, this talk is essentially about how to look at the art and science harmony in the poetic works of Sri Arabindo and Subramanya Bharati. But for that, I have to give a historical context. What is that historical context? See, in the 19th century, when it was all starting, the dominant paradigm was that of the Newtonian physics. The Newtonian physics provided a world view in which this entire universe was a clockwork mechanism. Naturally, when you have a clockwork mechanism, you will always have a watchmaker. And so, they had this natural theology, what they called a natural theology, which meant you study life to understand the mechanisms that have been put forth into it by the creator. So, they were looking, for example, if you are studying a leaf and you are going to study how the chlorophyll works, if you are studying the eye and if you are going to study how the retina works, then you will always see it in terms of design, a design that has been put into it by an extra cosmic creator. In 1859, a book came. Name of the book was The Origin of Species, returned by Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin did not discover evolution. Charles Darwin put forth a very tangible, viable process. He discovered that process, that process was natural selection. And all of a sudden, evolution had always been there. Remember, evolution had always been there in the West as a fringe concept. It was a speculative concept. Even Erasmus Darwin, who was the grandfather of Charles Darwin, he had written a poem on evolution. But they were all in the realm of speculations. For the first time, Charles Darwin showed how evolution could happen. More importantly, he showed that the species can change, they can split into new species. We have to remember one thing. If you go to Google and you do a Google image search for evolution, you will find something. There is this small monkey, then there is this bigger monkey, then there is something that may resemble your neighbor or your person whom you hate most, your mass teacher, another one, intermediate monkey. Then you have the Neanderthal, then you have the Chromagnome. At last, you will have a white cocasside male, the top of evolution, that is the ladder. That particular view of evolution is wrong. Darwin never said that we came from the apes. Darwin said that we are a branch of the ape family. Humanity is nothing but a branch of the grand pylogenetic tree that is the tree of life. That is what Darwin said. That is what, if he had just said about an evolution and that evolution that was a ladder in which the white cocasside male was at the top, actually the western establishment, the western religion, western theology would not have had a problem. Here, Darwin suggested just like how the heliocentric theory removed humanity from the imagined center of the solar system, not even the universe, the solar system. The same way Darwin removed the humanity, its egoistic position from the permit of life, he changed the permit of life into tree of life and that was the greatest shock. They were not ready to accept that, so they invented something called social Darwinism. It sounded very scientific. So in social Darwinism, what they were doing, they were telling that competition, they just changed the focus to competition. They said that the survival of the fittest, by the way, Darwin's original species does not have the words survival of the fittest. It belonged to another one philosopher, Herbert Spencer and it is actually a no meaning term, survival of the fittest, whatever survives is the fittest. So how do you exactly define survival of the fittest? Darwin considered the survival of the fittest is that which adapts itself. So they created this social Darwinism, which is actually a kind of status co-ideology to justify imperialism, colonialism, racism and all those kind of things. But Ben Charles Darwin said that we are part of the pylogentric tree and that we can branch further. We are a branch, the branch can go on and branch further. He was putting forth essentially a non-dualistic worldview. Darwin, after his discovery of, after his return from the HMAS Beagle trip, he took 20 years to sit and work on the data and he was writing notes and writing notes and writing notes. And in one of those notes, it's very interesting, it was dated 1838. He talks about the oneness of life which manifests itself in manifold manifestations. So he says that there is one life, one basic principle that manifests itself in different ways. Now what the western scientists, even those who appreciated Darwin, are able to understand it? No. It was understood by an Indian scientist, Jagadish Chandra Bose. What did Jagadish Chandra Bose do? He discovered that life is a continuity, it cannot be divided into categories. And this continuity, he included also the inanimate objects. So what you call inanimate objects, what you call animate objects, what you call plants, what you call animals, they all have the same strand deeply running inside them. He was able to show them in his instruments, in the form of graphs. When he presented this in 1902, the West was not ready to accept this. This guy is basically a physicist. What does he have to do with the physiology? That was their reaction, but J.C. Bose persisted. Who was the one who supported J.C. Bose when he wanted to form an institution of science? It was Bhagini Nivedita. Nivedita supported J.C. Bose. From this point, we come to the actual subject that we are going to talk about. And it was Sister Nivedita who called Sri Aurobindo from Baroda to Bengal to lead the freedom struggle. And it was Sister Nivedita who later facilitated Sri Aurobindo coming to Pondicherry. It was Sister Nivedita who talked, interacted with Subramanya Bharati, made him open his eyes to the problems around him. Subramanya Bharati dedicated his collection of poems to Sister Nivedita and addressed her as his Guru. So Sister Nivedita is a basic connection between Subramanya Bharati, Sri Aurobindo and science. Then we come to Sri Aurobindo coming to Pondicherry. So when Sri Aurobindo comes to Pondicherry and he studies the Tamil literature here, the devotional literature here. It's a very interesting thing. And whom he studied? He studied the Alvar poetry. Alvar poetry forms the basis of the Sri Vaishnava Visishta Dvaita. Visishta Dvaita is Visesha Dvaita. So he studied Visishta Dvaita's basis, not Visishta Dvaita. The core raw material that from which, the core from which Visishta Dvaita came and that was Nammalvar's poetry. So Sri Aurobindo studies Nammalvar's devotional mystic poetry. And he says in his work that there are five things that characterize Nammalvar's poetry. One is that it is pure and passionless reason. The second thing is about, it is about direct perception of truth in the highest solar realm. The third thing about, the third important feature of Nammalvar's poetry Sri Aurobindo identifies is that there is a vision of the beauty of God. Then there is love, ecstasic love towards that beauty of God. And fifth, victorious union with the divine. Now if you look at it carefully, the first two, the pure, passionless reason and direct perception of truth in the highest realm, solar realm, they two belong to what we can characterize as Jnana. Then the devotion, the love, sorry, the love and the vision of beauty, that two belong to Bhakti. And finally you have the non-dual union which of course is the liberation. This is how Sri Aurobindo characterizes Nammalvar's poetic discourse. Now Nammalvar's poetry is very important for this commonizing of science and art. Again another interesting aspect is Nammalvar was born in Tirunelveli district, the same district from where Subramanya Bharati comes. Nammalvar's poetry, I will give you an example. So it is in Tamil. Now let me give the translation. There are five Tanmatras, five basic elements, Tanmatras, which we call them as Panchabhutas. Of this you can touch and feel the land. You can drink the water and you can have a physical interaction with the water. You can breathe the air, you can have physical interaction with the air. You can touch the fire, you can burn yourself, you can have the physical interaction with fire, you can feel it's warmth. All these you can have direct physical interaction, concrete physical interaction. But what about the space, the Agasha? You cannot have direct physical interaction in the ancient Indian system of philosophy. Those who took materialist stand like Charu Akash, they denied the existence of Agasha because we couldn't touch it, we couldn't feel it, it is not concrete. And Nammalvar starts it by telling Thirudavism essentially it means concrete space. So he gives this objective of being concrete to space which always those who are only tuned to direct physical perception deny. So he is talking about higher reality, he tells that. That is one aspect here in these three lines I quoted. The second that forms, in fact that changed, I would say that line changed the discourse of entire India. The entire history of India was changed by that line. What was that line? Udall misai weerana. Like the life falls inside the body, Vishnu is permeating the entire existence. Like the life falls in a concealed way, that is the exact words, like the life falls in a concealed way he permeates the entire existence. So here he is saying that in all the physical bodies, in all the animate, inanimate matter, in all matter throughout the universe Vishnu exists as the Antaryami. When we tell that Vishnu is the Antaryami, we essentially mean that he is Antaryami within a living being, particularly human being, we are very comfortable with that. But what he is saying is that he is the Antaryami of the entire universe which also means the other way the entire universe is his body. The whole universe becomes holy. That is why when a book falls down, we show reverence. When you look at this, only in India that happens, right? We worship our inanimate tools. Why that happens? Because we understand that the inanimate object also has life. And this poetry forms the basis of vizishta-dvaita of Sri Ramanuja. In fact, Sri Ramanuja loved so much Namaharva. If you go to Vaishnavaita temples, just a minute, just one minute, how much time we have? We have some time now. I can go, right, some one hour. So, if you go to Vaishnavaita temples in Tamil Nadu, you will remember that a chadari is put on your head. You would have seen that. A chadari is put on your head. If you look at it, there will be the feet of the Lord there. Why it is called chadari is because Namaharva is also called Sadagoban. And this is actually the chadari, the feet of Lord represents Sadagoban Namaharva himself. In his place, in his original hometown, in Tirunelveli, in that Vishnu temple, there is also a temple for Namaharva. Sri Ramanuja comes and visits the temple. And he says there should be a chadari for Namaharva also. That should be called a Ramanuja. So, the feet of the Lord is Namaharva. The feet, the holy feet of Namaharva is Ramanuja. That is the kind of love Sri Ramanuja had for Namaharva. And the Visishtradvaita essentially represents this. That the entire universe is the body of Vishnu. And Vishnu exists as the life throughout the universe. That is Visishtradvaita. And from this Sri Ramanuja's Visishtradvaita was Bhakti movement born. From Bhakti movement, the entire resistance to invasions that happened in North India was created. Whether it is the Kalsa, whether it is the Maratha movement, whether it is the Rajput movement, go inside it, you will find the Kalsa movement would have its roots in the poetry of Kabir. It is in the Maratha, Bhakti movement that from Dukaram and Samatha Ramadas, Shivaji came. You can see that Sri Ramanuja, from Sri Ramanuja, Ramananda, from Ramananda, Kabir, Kabir and Guru Nanak and the complete Bhakti movement has its start in this particular line in this small village in South India. And it was Namaharva's poetry that directly Sri Aravindu started working on and he said these five defining features of Namaharva. Now look at, let us take to one poetry of Sri Aravindu. I do not have the poetry right now with me. I will tell specific lines from it and I will talk about it. The poetry called Electron. In that particular poetry, it was written, if I am right, on 15 July 1938. He was talking about the electron being a burning chariot in which Shiva writes. It was the one in which he uses the word as the particle of God in which the worlds and the universes were built. He talks about all that. Then he tells a very interesting thing that it is the abode of eternity. It is the temple of time's eternity, he says, about the electron. That is a very interesting statement. Because as we know, electron, we can relate it to matter, building of the matter. We can relate it to even building of the universe and building of the worlds. That is all fine. Why bring in time into this? We all know about the double-slit experiment. I would not go into that. The double-slit experiment gave us a very important notion about matter at the very fundamental basis of matter. Observation and consciousness exist. What we say is that this is Mishra Prabhancha. It is not just matter and from the matter consciousness arises. It is essentially a mixture of consciousness and matter. Matter again can be divided into the material component, configuration and processes. Again, the material component inside it also can be again divided into three. This is how the entire world is. Up to that, it is very clear. But there is another one aspect to this. There was a very great physicist called John Wheeler, John Occubal Wheeler, who brought out this concept of participatory universe. He created a mind experiment. The mind experiment is something like this from a quasar somewhere. An electron or a photon is coming to the earth. Billions of light years away. This particular thing exists. From there, an electron or a photon comes. A small particle comes. In between the earth and this billions of light years away quasar, there exists a dense galaxy or a black hole. It exists. Because of that, it forms what is called a gravitational lens. When a gravitational lens is formed like that, the electrons or the particular particle photon, they come like this. The electron comes. There is a lens. In an analyte, it comes like this and it goes like this. So, where they again come and unite, these two things, where they come and unite, their path trajectory would be lost. Quantum mechanics' basic idea is that if the path history is lost and you are taking a measurement, then it will create an interference pattern, meaning that it travelled as a wave. If you know the path and you are taking a measurement, then it will show itself as particles. Now, if you take a measurement, when the path is already defined, where you take a measurement, then it means that particular thing has travelled as a particle from its source. If you are taking a measurement when the path history is lost, there it shows in a very physical way that it has travelled as wave. All these billions of years, it has travelled as wave. All these billions of years, it has travelled as a particle based on the measurement you take, which actually means an event that is going to happen in the future affects the way the particle travels either as a particle, either that minute electron or a photon travels either as a particle or as a wave. That means the future affects the past. The future affects the past. It is the past affects the future. That is okay. The time flows like this. But here the future affects the past. How is that possible? Well, if you know how is that possible, then you can get a Nobel Prize for India. You can get a Nobel Prize for Auroville, actually. Point is still it was a mind experiment. In 1999, they actually created a small experimental setup and they tested it in this lab. It was called delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. And they got the same results that when the path history was known, you have interference pattern. When the path history was not known, you have, sorry, when the path history was not known, you were having bans. So this particular thing baffled people. It is really something very, very interesting in GUE because the future can affect the past, the particle level. And now you read that particular line of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo doesn't know about quantum mechanics. In fact, it was, this poetry was written in 1938. It was in 1927. The slow wave, fifth slow wave physics conference, very famous conference happened well. And Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein clashed and Albert Einstein said that he criticized quantum theory and he said that God doesn't play dice with the universe. And then Niels Bohr got irritated and answered Albert Einstein. But he stopped telling God what to do and what not to do. In fact, it's a very interesting thing because if you go to Ellora, you have a very beautiful statue of a sculpture of Shiva and Parvati. What was Shiva doing? Playing dice. So when Einstein said God doesn't play dice with the universe, India has long before proclaimed God does play dice with the universe. Later Stephen Hawking made another one interesting remark. He said God not only plays dice with the universe, he throws dice where you cannot find them. Then by that he meant the black holes. Anyway, the point here is, here is a line from Sri Aurobindo that foresees this particular aspect of electron. Though Sri Aurobindo doesn't know anything about quantum mechanics. He definitely doesn't know anything about the quantum eraser experiment. He doesn't know about the particular thought experiment that Vila constructed because Vila constructed it in 1970s, 20 years after Sri Aurobindo's Mahasamadhi. How was this possible? See, the point is... Of course, Sri Aurobindo, see, he didn't... What I'm saying is... No, I'm coming to another point here. I'm coming to another point here. The point I'm coming to is... Regarding... I have been an observer of things that have been happening here. There is... I always insist this. In this particular poem of Sri Aurobindo itself, a wonderful statement he makes, a wonderful word he uses, he says, onenesses. Not oneness, onenesses. So, why he should mention onenesses in plural? Why not oneness in singular? Because even in Advaita, you have different forms of Advaita. So, variety of perceptions is part and parcel of the human condition. In variety is part and parcel of the divine plan. Now, we can have differences. We can have different takes on a particular way in which we approach a particular problem. But fundamentally, we cannot resort to violence of any kind, whether it is physical violence or whether it is psychological violence or that is my first aspect to approach this particular problem. My second point is that we are here to serve the divine. We are here to make sure that the vision rectifies itself. And for that, we have to understand what actually mother and Sri Aurobindo intended. And they have given a time table. There is a particular goal that we have to achieve. And how do we reach that goal? We reach those goals through what I would call, it is called Silden Crisis. Silden Crisis is because a very similar situation is there in a science fiction universe written by Isaac Asimov called the Foundation, in which the crisis has become the springboard to jump to the next level. And when a crisis comes actually, that means we are moving in the right direction. If no crisis is coming, then particularly a city like Auroville that has to go to the next level, it does not happen. The crisis is an indicator that we are moving in the right direction. The only problem that we have is how to work out our differences. And for that, there is something called Samanvaya. This civilization has created a process called Samanvaya. The west has created a process called dialectics, where you have the thesis, you have the antithesis, they both clash and then you go to the synthesis. In the case of Samanvaya, what we do is we reach out to the core of the opponent or the person who is standing against you, the core. And we make a strong assumption that that core is divine. It is from that understanding, not assumption, that is the wrong word. We proceed from that understanding that that particular core is divine. So we have to construct a dialogue with that core, not with the exterior, not with the egoistic, not with the vitalistic, not with the emotional aspects, that core aspect. Anybody who has come to our will, we do believe that they have come with a good intention of being a willing servant of the divine. But then there are a lot of challenges. And when those challenges come, we have to make sure we have to face them, we have to face them head on. But before facing them head on, we have to remember in our mind that they are not actually enemies. They are on the opposite side. Within them there is this core divinity. And we have to establish a dialogue with that core divinity. How we are going to do that? That is up to us. We have to work out that modalities. But the point is there are no enemies here. There are no enemies here. We are fighting with forces, but there are no enemies. Let me tell you it from the Puranic language. In the Puranic language you have asuras. But if you look at each and every Puran, there is a very interesting thing that you have only here in India perhaps. In everywhere else there is this evil, there is the good thing, there is the evil side, the good side wins over, the evil side matters over. But here once the good side wins over the asuric forces, when they win over the asuric forces, the divine wins over the asuric forces, what happens is that the asuric form dissolves and a very beautiful divine thing comes out of it and tells that I have been under the cloak of a curse in this asuric form but now I have achieved my real nature. Now what we have to do is help the person who is on the other side of the fence reach that divine nature. Perhaps the person on the other side of the fence may be thinking that we have to reach the same divine nature but then that is a common purpose, that is a common purpose. On that common purpose we need to have, I believe, the dialogue with the individuals, with the individuals. In an informal way we need to reach out. They may boycott us, they may even be disrespectful to us and again I believe that violence is the last resort of the incompetent, whether it is psychological violence. If that person shows psychological violence, you are reaching out to that person. That person shows that no, no, I won't talk to you because I am going to boycott you. I am not going to speak to you. You belong to a evil side. Because he is saying like that, that point we can be sure that we are on the right side because you are reaching out and he or she is not able to have a dialogue with you. You are boycotting you. Let us have dialogues. Let us not boycott each other. Let us not move away from each other. Let us sit together and let us talk. And let us remember that the core is divine in each one of us and our purpose in its core is also divine because we are here and that is the way I think we have to move forward. And when we are doing that already we have delayed and when we are delaying, we are not delaying or will. We are delaying actually a planetary evolution. So we should not become guilty in the face of the planet. The face of the future. Now the security madam is here. Gov'ning board members are here. New Gov'ning board members are here. Aurovillians are here. The opposing group is here. The supporting group is here. But after 50 years, after 100 years, all these will be gone. This will be an important chapter. How our grandchildren are going to read about it? How our austerity is going to read about it? How, what kind of value judgments they will pass on us? What they will tell? Would they tell that we have betrayed the dreams of mother and sri Aurobindo? Or would they tell that we have actually catalyzed and we have moved in the proper direction? So we have to look at that also. From the points of view of the posterity, how they will tell, how they will judge us. So this is how I visualize the whole thing. And hence, I approach this. There is a famous statement. It says, hasten cautiously. So I want to hasten the process of creating the, achieving the dream, not dream, the vision of mother in a very cautious way, in a holistic way. Taking, bringing in all the people to the dialogue table. That is very important. We have to do that. Let us take again a lesson from Sri Krishna. Draupadi has been disrobed. She has been humiliated in public. And she had made a vow, telling that she would only tie her head with the blood of Tuchasana and Thuryodhana. And who was Draupadi? Krishna's own sister. Krishna had such a great love for Draupadi. But despite that fact, Krishna went again and again and again and again on peace missions. Again and again and again on peace missions. He wanted to avoid Kurukshetra by all means. If Kurukshetra, let us think of an alternate scenario where Kurukshetra has been avoided. Duryodhana would have lived. Tuchasana would have lived. Draupadi would never have, would have had justice. Her hair would have remained untied. His own sister, beloved sister, Krishna would have done an injustice to his own sister then. Despite that, Krishna made very sincere attempts for peace. But it failed. Kurukshetra happened. But we have to make that. We have to make sure that we make very sincere attempts for peace. So, you see, what actually Krishna asked, Krishna asked, ultimately he asked, gave us five villages. Not the entire thing, five villages. He was ready to go for that also. So, let us even make overtures, generous overtures and see what happens. If the other side is not Gauravas, then they will come. If they are Gauravas, then Kurukshetra will happen. Either way, it is good. But we have to make sure that we have, we are opening up to the other side with real hall. Wholeheartedly, we have to open up to them. But at the same time, we have to be clear in what we want to achieve. And there, we have to be absolutely clear. So, that is how I think we have to approach. And let me tell you another one aspect. When I was a teenager, India was undergoing a turmoil, big turmoil. There was terrorism and Punjab, terrorism in Kashmir, terrorism in the Northeast. It was not like today. It was very, very serious. We didn't even know whether we are going to live our adulthood in United India or we are going to live in a separate land. We didn't even know that. That was how it was. At that time, Swami Tanganandanda Maharaja of Ramakrishna Mission, he gave an interview in Duddarshan. At that time, only Duddarshan was there. He gave an interview. The interviewer, he asked Swami Tanganandanda Maharaja, what do you think about all this terrorism? Then we all expected, because I was a teenager and I wanted to wipe out the terrorists and save India. That is the kind of thing that you have as a teenager, patriotic thing. Then I was listening to this interview and Swami Tanganandanda Maharaja said one thing. What is positive about the terrorism is that the youngsters in India, they still believe in ideals. The youngsters in India, they are ready to risk their lives for the idols. There is a lot of energy. Their ideals are wrong. Their methodologies are wrong. Their paths are wrong. But they have energy and they have selflessness. That is the wonderful thing he said. That has to be channelized in positive ways. So, if there is no energy, then I would be really worried about the whole nation. But this shows that there is energy with the youth. We have to use it. The same thing I would apply. I want to apply it here and I don't want to tell anyone as terrorist. Nobody is a terrorist here. But there is a lot of energy. That energy we have to go. We have to tap it and we have to make sure that it is channelized in a very positive way to catalyze mother's dreams and visions. That is how I see forward. So, we can... Is time is there?