 Prof. Monique Mahendra, can you please start? Thank you. Very welcome. First of all, I pay my obeisance to the great adorable ones, to the great liberated ones, to the great receptions, to the great religious teachers, to the great saints, monks and nuns of the whole cosmos. This is our auspicious starting Mangalacharan. Om Rim Navo You can buy your university to hold such an important seminar on the comparative studies and research in philosophy rather than darshan and modern science. I think that first of all, let us make the purpose of such blending of Jain philosophy and science clear. According to my view, the real purpose of such blending of Jain philosophy with science and technology can help us to pave the way for establishment of better global world order which is free from at least gross violence, at least gross restlessness, at least gross environmental imbalances, at least gross ecological imbalances, at least gross cruelty and hatred. This should be the main purpose of comparative studies and research in Jain philosophy and science and technology. And also, we want to cultivate the right views like universal friendliness. It is called Maitri, Vishwamaitri Bhav. Universal compassion, Vishwakarunal Bhav. Universal harmony and reconciliation which is the message of Anakantamada. These are the main purposes of holding such seminars and to go forward in the direction of the comparative studies. The need of the hour is that science and technology has made an unprecedented progress and development in this field and we can get those tools and those apparatuses, equipments to utilize them not only for the research but also for the dissemination of what findings we get from them. And that we have to apply in the world global life, world global society, the human society, the humankind as a whole should get this message, should be benefited by the findings of our research and I think we shall go a long way if we continue these efforts. Now, first point of my lecture is that Jainism believes in the independent existence of what is called Atman or Jiva which we call in English as the soul or the self. This is a non-physical reality. Generally in science people are concerned with only the physical reality which is definitely nature and the atomic structure which has evolved all this universal material universe. But also there is a concern even in science of non-physical existence and all of you must be knowing that space and time these are certain realities which are not physical realities. The nature of this reality is non-physical. In the same way according to Jain philosophy, Jain darshan, soul or Atman it is called Appa or Aya in Jaki language that it is called Consciousness. Consciousness is the characteristic of the substance soul just as materiality or what we call as the color, smell, touch and taste. These are the properties of measure or physical reality. So what is physical reality? Must have all these four perceptible qualities in them whereas soul being a non-physical reality is devoid of all these properties. The characteristic of soul is Consciousness. Chetana which is called Uva-Oga in Gragilith, Upa Yoga and it means the activity of Consciousness. The Consciousness which is active not passing and nature of soul is such that it is always continuously going on and on without stopping. That is to say the Consciousness is always active in all kinds of organisms in all kinds of living beings, in all kinds of souls. So this way we can find the contrast between the nature of the physical reality which is popularly known as nature and the other world which people use is mind but jainism differs here and would like to use the word Consciousness. So we have to differentiate fundamentally, metaphysically between matter that is physical reality and Consciousness that is non-physical reality. The whole universe, the whole cosmos, whatever is going on in this world, in this universe is just nothing else but the interplay of mind and Consciousness of Putgar We called matter Putgar, Putgar is the term, the technical term used for the physical reality. We call it Putgar which includes both the mass and energy. In science we know now very clearly that mass and energy are the aspects of the same physical reality. Sometime it vanishes as a mass, sometime it vanishes as energy. So that combination, both matter and energy, that is called Putgar. I will explain you why this term Putgar is used. But this Putgar is one main player of the play of the drama of universe. The whole universal drama is going on and the main actor, one of them is Putgar, is physical reality. The second actor is soul or Consciousness. But the crux of the thing, the most difficult and intricate part is to understand the relation, correlation, interaction, interplay of on one hand the soul or Consciousness and on the other hand the matter Putgar or what is called the physical reality. According to Jain cosmological concept, cosmogonical concept rather the universe is without beginning and without end. From the point of your time it is an eternal entity. It never comes into being. It was there from always, whenever it was, it was there. And now it is never end. That is what we know as the universe. And in Jain technological, technological terminology, it is called as loka. Loka is that part of the space which we call as universe. Space itself is another non-physical reality like soul, separate and different from nature. Space is in itself infinite without boundary, without end. And therefore the whole space as an infinite entity, it has got certain part of it which is called loka or the universal space or the cosmic space in which we live. It is only one. The whole non-cosmic space as a whole has got in the center. Center is only our metaphorical language. It is one part, one spot in the total non-cosmic space, a small part which we call as this universe in which we live. It is called loka or the cosmic space. In this cosmic space, which is also infinite or eternal from with respect to Jain, the space itself was cosmic as well as non-cosmic, the total space is again infinite with respect to space, time. That is, it is without beginning, without end. Now this interplay of matter and soul is going on in this universe, in this world, in this cosmos from beginningless time. And the number of souls in the world is also infinite. This is a mathematical quantity which is called infinite. And there is certain mathematical explanations to understand this concept. But more or less we can compare this infinity with the concept of infinity in modern mathematics and physics. So we say the number of souls in the universe is infinite. The number of putgal is infinite. Putgal is in two forms. One which is called as the param anu. That is the ultimate indivisible particle of the physical reality. That is called param anu, the absolute atom, we can call it. It cannot be divided further indivisible unit. So there are infinite number of param anus in the universe as well as there are infinite number of material aggregates which are formed on account of the association and dissociation of physical structures composed of these ultimate particles. So we can understand in this vast universe, in this vast cosmic space which is in itself finite with respect to space. It is not infinite. It is a definite size, a definite shape and it is only a very very small part of the total aloha, total non-cosmic space which is in itself. Now our interplay, our world is related with loga. In this loga the number of infinite souls there are there. Then the number of atoms and number of skandhas that is aggregates. That is the formation, the structures which are formed by the association, the association of these what we call as the ultimate atoms, pannons. In these there are certain categories. One of these categories which is the most important one each plays exactly the role of the hero in physical world. That is called karma-vargana. I have written a book explaining the nature and you can see the title here, Neuroscience and Karma. Neuroscience and Karma, this is the book in which I have given the concept of karma. Karma is one of the eight groups of what we call gala. But very important, most important because it can influence by its power, by its strength, by its nature the soul. And the soul has the property to have interaction with the buddha. The both on one-handed soul and on one-handed buddha they have got the intrinsic power. They have got the talent to interact with each other without even disturbing their own structure. That is the soul is associated with karmic buddha and the karmic buddha gets associated with the soul. And then there is the action and reaction, the action of buddha on jiva the action of matter on consciousness. And again the consciousness affected by these kind of cycles of reactions goes on affecting the material world. It goes on attracting more and more karmic particles, gets them bound with it and that is because of the infinite cycle of transmigration of birth and death in the universe all souls, one-handed souls who are in the world continuously undergo the birth and death because of the karmic association with soul. And the reasons, the causes of the bondage of these karmic material particles with the soul, there are mainly psychosis, the called asrava. Asrava is integral part of the soul itself. Asrava, the soul gets transformed. One state of the transformation is in the form of which we call as mithradva perverse outlook, perverse view. And every soul even without the development, developed the biological structure which we call even the go the one-sense organs only. They also have got this kind of perverse outlook or view. So our problem is that how to resolve all these things. The thing is that we have to find ways which is given in Jainism as a practice of mainly meditation, again penances, again inhibition of the ashram and death can change our consciousness. What we have to bring about is ultimate transformation of our own consciousness. That will result in ultimate transformation of human brain, of human neuroscience, of human biochemical reactions which are going in our body responsible for our behavior and attitude. We want to create a world which is full of compassion, which is full of friendliness, which is full of love, which is full of cooperation. For that we have to bring out transformation. We have to apply science, apply technology, apply philosophy, apply spiritual techniques. All these things together can bring about this. We can test it, we can prove it on equipments and we find that there is a real change in this. Each education, global education can evolve a system in which the training of transformation of brain is given from the childhood to all everywhere in global education. We can just create the human brain, real human brain free from inhuman tendencies, inhuman instincts at certain level. All together it is very difficult but on mass level, on global level, it can evolve. This is the world in which we live in the world of science and technology. We can utilize both and these techniques are so easy to learn techniques. Even a child can learn it. Even a pregnant woman, if she is given such training, the fetus or the embryo in her body will get this training when he is born. He will have a completely changed brain from the normal birth. So this is what we want to do. We want to translate into action the message of the great Lord Mahavira and even the great Lord Buddha, the great Lord Christ, all of them the great seers and sages of what is called as Hindu philosophy or Vedanta, Sankhya and we blend together all them. We blend all the nations and let us see how can make this world a better world in which all these problems, at least the problems of these bloody wars should be abolished once for all. I think this is to be done. Let us all join together and do. In our India, in our country, our religious leader, Ajah Resri Mahashramanji, is taking efforts, very very stern efforts to change the heart of the people, explain to them the unity of this through Ahinsa Yatra, walking in food for hundreds and thousands of kilometers and getting this message. And now you can utilize this technology and propagate all over the world. So let us hope a better world. We are going to start online courses in training in nonviolence. It will be available to any corner, any part of the world. So let us see our university, Jain Vishwabharti Institute in India, Ladnur, Rajasthan has evolved a course, training course, and just we are going to launch it on online training course. So I thank you very much. Especially our old trained future humans who have taken these efforts to connect us, all of us, and my colleague, my colleague Dr. Dr. Muni Abhijit Kumar is with me. He has done his PhD. So I am now 79, but he is 29. So he will continue this work. He is also explored in English and philosophy. So let us sit all together and go further. Thank you.