The Quantum of Solace

                                                                                    *Saumitra Mohan

            For more than two millennia, the physicists have provided materialist explanation for almost everything in our cosmos including evolution of life. However, with the Quantum Physics affirming the non-material, spiritual underpinning to the physical world and relegating matter to a secondary position, the classical physicists suddenly seem to be struggling. The books like ‘The Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra and ‘Dancing Wu Li Masters’ by Gary Zukav have beautifully explained the correlation between the two.

            In the classical paradigm, the dynamics of a complex system was explained through the properties of its constituent parts. But, the scientists have slowly begun to realize that nature, at the sub-atomic level, is not actually a mechanical universe made of primary building blocks. The sub-atomic reality made of neutron, proton and quarks has been discovered to be nothing, but a stable pattern of slowed-down energy capturing our attention.

            Subatomic particles are not made of any material stuff; they are dynamic patterns of energy. When we observe them, we never see any substance or any fundamental structure. What we observe are dynamic patterns continually changing into one another – a continuous ‘dance of energy’. The quantum phenomenon actually sits well with the insights of oriental metaphysics offering a spiritual dimension to appreciate the nature of material reality.

            While material objects have locational certainty correlated to a particular point in time, the quantum does not follow that due to an inherent problem of non-locality. Even if two fundamental units of photons, which were once linked, get separated by billions of light years, they would remain connected to each other forever, defying the space-time divide and would respond to each other’s movements. Perhaps that is how spiritually more evolved eastern mystics could teleport themselves to distant locales in a jiffy or telepathically communicate with each other, as also referred in the books, ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’, by Paramhansa Yogananda and ‘Living with Himalayan Masters’ by Swami Rama.

            In reductionist materialistic paradigm, the driving force behind evolution has never been fully explored or understood because it is assumed that there is none. Though a primary understanding clearly suggests the evolution of life from the single cell to the complex human form, the evolutionary biologists don’t dare to think beyond the materialist paradigm. Some biologists and neuro-scientists, in fact, believe that the consciousness is created by the electro-chemical reactions of the brain and could be destroyed by medical interference e.g. by administration of anaesthesia or simply by death.

            They fail to understand that consciousness regains its vitality in a new body in the same fashion as a light bulb emits or stops emitting light after being switched on and off. As lighting of the bulb requires flow of electricity through the circuit, similarly the consciousness requires a live organism for its manifestation. According to some, the evolution of life is nothing but the struggle of consciousness to find greater and better expression in the material realm, if oriental mystics are to be believed. And this evolution, directly or indirectly, is intricately networked as per new scientific discovery.

            An individual or an organism can’t have an independent existence. We are all interrelated to each and every physical and non-physical reality. We have to play out our part till we have realised our assigned purpose and till divine energy has exhausted itself of which there is no possibility as energy could never be created or destroyed. So, the creation is likely to continue till infinity.

            Neale Donald Walsch in her ‘Conversations with God’ says that the God has created this world to realise Himself. She says that the Almighty has had a conception of every emotion or material object, but the same would be meaningless unless the same is tested through a cosmic play which Hindus call ‘Maya’ or Chinese call ‘Tao’. So, by creating this world, the God is actually realising Himself. The myriad organic consciousness is nothing, but multiple expressions of the divine consciousness which are all interconnected with every other physical reality as Quantum Physics has scientifically proven.

            There have been many true instances or episodes, the reports whereof are available on YouTube or on World Wide Web, where many individuals have had ‘near death experiences’ (NDE) or ‘out of body experiences’ (OOBE). In all these cases, these individuals were confirmed medically dead, but they came back to life and have recounted first-person details of the incidents occurring during the period they were medically dead, something which could not be possible for a dead person to know. The story of Dr. Eben Alexander, a neuro-surgeon, is one such famous example. All this points to the disjoint between life and consciousness and that consciousness could exist independent of biological ontology.

            Has not there been verified rebirth stories where people have given blow-by-blow details of their previous lives. If consciousness ends with cessation of life, then how does it continue and manifest in next life. Such rebirth stories are also abundantly available to be examined and verified. If genetics and biology explain everything, then what explains the differential personality and intellectual traits of two individuals born of same parents? It simply shows that the individual spirit or soul carries its consciousness enriched through its several lives. The same has also been borne out by the many past-life regression experiments including that of Dr. Brian Weiss as narrated in his book, ‘Many Lives, Many Masters’.

            Unlike the mechanical paradigm, the emerging paradigm is a holistic worldview, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. The view recognises the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena including individuals and societies. The awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena as manifestations of a basic oneness, is the very essence of oriental mystical traditions. All things are seen as interdependent, inseparable and as transient patterns of the same overarching reality.

            The Quantum Physicists have proven beyond doubt that the physical world is not the hard and unchangeable thing it may appear to be. Instead, it is a very fluid place, continuously built using our individual and collective thoughts. Quantum Physics has proven that thoughts are what put together and hold together this ever-changing energy field into the ‘objects’ that we see. Our thoughts are linked to this invisible energy and they determine what the energy forms. Our thoughts literally shift the universe on a particle-by-particle basis to create our physical reality. It is this power of our thoughts that Rhonda Byrne has delineated in her celebrated book, ‘The Secret’.

            So, while we struggle with our ontology, we should realise that ours is not an isolated existence but interconnected with every other reality in the universe which is subject to change depending on the power of our thoughts. ‘The Law of Attraction’ as discussed in ‘The Secret’, catches up with us all in this unified world. So, we must keep our thoughts positive to create and receive positivity in all our actions otherwise we shall fail our role in this divine drama. When both metaphysics and science are converging today, what prevents us from converging and coexisting with other fellow beings and creatures of this planet? Unless we agree to do so, we shall remain doomed forever.

Away from Alienating Education

                                                                                    Saumitra Mohan

            There was a time when the Indian students pursued education for learning life skills and acquiring knowledge. The pursuit of learning then was not about mugging facts and information, but was directed to lead the learners to wisdom thereby enriching the entire society. It was a time when none needed Govt permission for opening an educational institution and when no formal degrees or diplomas were awarded to students by the renowned Gurus through once famed ‘Gurukul’ system of education. The willing parents sent their wards to the concerned Gurukuls where there was no screening test for admission. The students’ sole criterion for acceptance as a learner by the Guru was their penchant for acquisition of learning and knowledge.

            The knowledge acquired at such Gurukuls was never linked to particular jobs or services as mechanically done today. The number of such Gurukuls was less, yet there was no hue and cry for admission into those institutions because the concept of education was never confined to the three Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic). Those interested in trade, business, commerce, arts and crafts learnt the same directly on the job through the practitioners of the respective professions. The caste and class system in the Vedic Age is said to have been open and afforded lateral movement for people depending upon their trade and profession.

            Knowledge was pursued for the pleasure of learning depending on the interests of the learners. Trades and professions were learnt mostly on the job through practical experience. Those pursuing education derived pleasure in sharing the same rather than using their knowledge to earn their thirty pieces of silver. Education was never deemed as a product or a means to earning one’s livelihood only, but was more of a way to nurture one’s creative muses and faculties. Perhaps that is why, India of yore was much more advanced economically, socially, spiritually, materially and intellectually. Ancient India excelled in science, metaphysics, literature and commerce. Our ancient thinkers are still much more revered for their originality and path breaking discoveries than neo Indians as product of modern education system are known today. In fact, many of us have made their marks after they have crossed geographical boundaries and reached foreign shores.

            But today we have come to a point where schooling and pursuing education have become tedious, mundane and joyless even though our numerous educational policies over the years have emphasised the need to make education joyful while linking it to the acquisition of life skills. However, we are still far way from realising the hallowed objectives. As a country of over 1300 million people where about two third populations is below 35 years of age, we have millions of degree and diploma holders without any worthwhile life skills, without any employability or without any confidence to think of a career beyond the formal, organised or classical sectors of livelihood. It is these directionless youths without a vision and self-belief who have become a ticking time bomb waiting to explode, thereby also nixing our entire demographic dividends. They are often used and abused by different vested interests as they, despite acquisition of formal education, don’t have the capacity or ability to tell the chaff from the grain and hence, become a cannon fodder for nefarious and negative activities.

            It is here that we need to pause and ponder about the way we are evolving as a society and a polity. If we immediately don’t intervene and take corrective measures to bring in the desired changes in our education system, we will continue languishing as the world’s Back Office for doing the menial chores for rest of the world and by also becoming a supplier of skilled labour/brain power. We need to wrest the initiative to retrieve our intellectual leadership position in the Comity of Nations by reworking our education system by carefully nurturing creativity and originality among our children by acting on the myriad recommendations based on the problem diagnoses made by the various experts and specialists on the subject.

            It is notable here that the National Curriculum Framework 2005 conceived of evolving a National System of Education ‘capable of responding to India’s diversity of geographical and cultural milieus while simultaneously nurturing our common values’. Our National Education Policy, as changed from time to time, has always endeavoured to make school education comparable across the country in qualitative terms in sync with Constitutional values and also make it a means of ensuring national integration without compromising on the country’s pluralistic character.

            While many changes have been introduced over the years into our education system, more often than not, they have been cosmetic and piecemeal in nature. Our education system, like any other, has been status quoist, trying to sustain the age-old societal consensus and wisdom on different aspects of life. So, even though we have more schools, more class rooms, more playgrounds,  better infrastructures, better facilities and services, more teachers, more training, more students in the schools in keeping with the parameters laid down in the Right to Education Act, 2009, we don’t have quality and class in our education system.

            Our youths often have degrees and formal qualifications, but they don’t have skills required to survive numerous life situations and ergo, expect to be spoon-fed by the Govt through doles, patronage and other populist govt programme like parasites. Where our education policy should be such which could equip our youths for facing every life situation confidently to see every challenge as an opportunity, on the contrary, because of a contorted priorities, the emergent difficulties and hardships of life often break them to resort to negative paths including increased alienation and frustration.         

            The increasingly developing (economically) India has also seen a vertical split in our society what people like Andre Gunder Frank would call ‘Core’ and ‘Periphery’ or ‘Metropolis’ and ‘Satellite’. So, while people from the ‘Core’ are no longer dependent on the Govt for their needs and comforts, those from the ‘Periphery’ are completely dependent on the Govt for meeting their basic needs including education. So, the children from the two backgrounds have different cultural capital of their respective sub-cultures and have access to two different education services: one in the Govt sector and the other in the private sector even though both are informed by the same educational policy. The expectations and priorities of respective clienteles also vary due to differential backgrounds. Hence, the differential outcomes in their educational attainments.

            Most of our children are disadvantaged or handicapped right from the inception because of the accidental births in inferior or lower sub-cultures with value system other than those of the mainstream or dominant value system. So, those from the private schools do better in a highly prejudiced social pecking order, while those from the Govt schools often fall by the wayside unless their motivational capital nudge them enough to break through the glass ceiling of status and class. But all said and done, the basic thrust or thread running through both kinds of schools remain the same as they are both guided and informed by the same educational policy and social consensus on education. Hence, even the youths with the superior cultural capital have a utilitarian and instrumental view of education.

            The insistence on learning by rote, cramming of facts and passing an examination often numb the thinking faculties of our children as they are all made to run the rat race of landing a gainful employment. As one can gather, often the syllabi of the formal education and requirements of an employment have no practical relation to each other. Most of the jobs including civil services, running a business or a profession require certain basic skills including linguistic, numerical and common sense with a dash of ‘good character’. If one has good command over language, know basic maths and have some common sense, one can do most of the works required for the day to day life. If specialised jobs like engineering, medicine etc had more of the practical and empirical components than the formal, theoretical components, we would not have the instances of buildings or flyovers collapsing.

            In his celebrated work, ‘Deschooling Society’, Ivan Illich posited self-directed education, supported by intentional social relations in fluid informal arrangements. He believed that the pedagogical alienation in society is worse than the alienation of labour as suggested by Karl Marx. He further said that the schools condition people to be consumers of packages produced by other people and to accept ideas of endless progress, thereby bringing us to a precipice of an environmental catastrophe. Illich thinks deschooling central to the adjustment to bring society to a more humane level.

            Illich’s practical vision for learning in a deschooled society is built around what he calls ‘learning webs’. Illich envisages three types of learning exchange; between a skill teacher and a student, between people themselves engaging in critical discourse and between a master (a master practitioner like Dronacharya) and a student. This latter kind of relationship, which can occur in intellectual disciplines or the arts, but can also materialise in crafts or skills such as mountain climbing is stifled in a schooled society where non-accredited (read non formal) learning is looked at askance.

            So, our education system should be suitably transformed to regain our leadership position in the world. Instead of aspiring to be an economic or military superpower, India should aspire to be a knowledge superpower, a position now occupied by the United States of America and the rest would automatically follow. But for that, we need to get away from the sundry inflexibilities suffused in our institutionalised school practices which neglects the present of a child for future, while also neglecting different ways to help the child evolve into a complete person. For this, we need to adopt a holistic approach through a child-centric pedagogy by connecting knowledge to life beyond schools. Such an education system should have a sufficiently reduced curriculum load which ought to nurture creative thinking and originality among our children.

            The inclusive, friendly, peaceful and democratic school environment should be made accessible to learners from all sections of our society. Our schools, both Govt and private, should also have adequate room for pushing a child’s imagination and thinking, for inciting her inquisitiveness and questioning faculties during instructions. Children should not be made to simply accept things as in books or as told by the teachers. They should be made to learn through active questioning about the rationale or correctness of a concept or an idea. Had Raja Ram Mohan Roy or Vidyasagar accepted the given wisdom, we would still have a heinous ‘Sati’ custom continuing or ‘Widow Remarriage’ would not have been possible.

            We should also ensure provisioning the same quality of education in Govt schools as in the private schools. The quality of education imparted in European and American Govt schools is much better than those in ours. Unless and until we realise it, we would be missing to reap our demographic dividends.        The learners should actively construct their own knowledge with help from the teachers as facilitators and coordinators by relating new ideas to existing ideas and the same should happen through collaboration, negotiation and sharing of views.

            Also, as and where needed, participation of community members for experience and knowledge sharing should be encouraged. The teachers and instructors should engage learners through experience, making and doing, experimenting, reading, discussing, asking, listening, active thinking and listening and by encouraging them to express themselves. Teaching should be contextualised with the local knowledge, with real life socially relevant examples. Respect for differing viewpoints in open discussions should be encouraged, something which has been on discount in our country these days.

            The curriculum should be carefully crafted and so should be the related textbooks. Such curriculum should be in sync with the universal human values of a civilised society rather than confining children to a parochial nationalistic discourse, away from our philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is a family)’. Love and respect for fellow human being should come first and foremost than narrow, primordial identities. The examination system should be accordingly customised to be more flexible and integrated with classroom life without creating situations of stress or pressure for the students.

            Our education should also somehow be linked to spirituality. After all, if we all have to die one day, why do we need to be chasing life’s goodies and comforts beyond one’s need. A highly religious society which believes in rebirth, Karma theory (Doctrine of Just Deserts), peaceful coexistence, principle of Nar Narayana (where every human being is perceived divine) and where divine is supposed to pervade any and every dimension of our life, India today is bursting at the seams, moving far away from its historic and philosophical moorings. We are getting more used to perceive things in duality of ‘we’ versus ‘they’, something which repudiates our civilisational heritage and eclectic wisdom.

            Demonising others, hating fellow human beings, anomie and lawlessness, violence and other negative developments can not be the outcomes of a healthy education system. Hence, our education system should also help the learners understand and appreciate the purpose of human life which is nothing but continuous spiritual development of each human being by going through the countless cycles of births and deaths. Emphases on formal education and degrees should end to link education to practical life requirements to make it socially more relevant. The time could not be more opportune for further pushing the boundaries of our education system when rightist and revanchist forces are on the rise across the globe and when Quantum Physics and spirituality are converging. Indian leadership need to synergize their efforts with likeminded leaders of the world to build a consensus on protecting the universal human values through a humane education system promising a more fulfilling life for everyone.