Dr.King - Author of books on Yoga, Spirituality and Indology

[Quick links] [Pause]   I am sorry to use such harsh words. But they are not my words, nor they are addressed to you. That is how the Brahma supporters admonish their Jain opponents.  Let us continue our debate between the Brahma supporters and the Jain philosophers that we started in the previous episode.  The Jain philosophers have a totally non violent approach even when they debate. They use t...

[Quick links] [Pause]   How do you like it when someone says that to you? Is it meant to be a compliment or criticism? Many a times, even very nice ideas fall apart when it comes to practical application.  Jainism, one of the very ancient Indian schools of philosophy, has many such puzzling things. With all high respect for the great masters of this school, I often see many contradictions in their...

[Quick links] [Pause]       Many of us often make the mistake of jumping to conclude identity, based on similarity between two things. If two things are similar, that does not mean that they are identical. A cow has 4 legs and so also a dog. That does not make cow and dog same!  The Vijnyaana Vadi Buddhists see the similarity between the dream world and our wakeful world and jump to the conclusion...

[Quick links] [Pause]             There was another sect of Buddhists who denied the existence of the material world. They said that “all that exists is only the minds. What we think as something existing outside is actually inside our mind!”

[Quick links] [Pause]   The Buddhists have a fantastic theory of existence which neither needs the concept of soul nor the God. They say that there is no one who experiences anything. But still they say that you need to toil all your life to free yourself from all the suffering! That is the focal point of Buddhism. The Brahma supporters ridicule this theory of Buddhists not only as illogical but s...

[Quick links] [Pause]    In the previous episode we noted that the Buddhists rejected the concept of soul as well as God. These two were central to the philosophy of the Brahma supporters. Definitely there is a serious difference. Before we sort out the differences, let us first listen to what the Buddhists have to say.

[Quick links] [Pause]           Continuing our discussion on the debates on Brahma or God, in this episode let us see how the Brahma supporters face the criticisms by the Vaisheshikas or the ancient Indian atomic theorists.

[Quick links] [Pause] Did you know that there existed atomic theorists in India more than 2000 years before Dalton and others developed our modern atomic theory?  You may not find their theories as elaborate as the atomic theories of today. But the fact is that they did come up with such a theory thousands of years ago! And without any sophisticated gadgets that we have today. They did not even ha...

[Quick links] [Pause] We human beings get bored sometimes. And we end up doing all kinds of silly things. But does God also get bored sometimes? Does he also do silly things?

[Quick links] [Pause] In the previous episode we saw how the ancient Samkhya philosophers put forward their claims. In one stroke they make the idea of Brahma or God totally irrelevant.  Apparently, they can explain ‘everything’ without taking recourse to any mystical entity called God! How does the Brahma supporters take on this onslaught of the opponent?

[Quick links] [Pause] We were talking about the debates between rival Indian groups about their ideas on Brahma or God. While we discuss these things, we should keep in mind that we are talking about a time period when many of the major world religions of today did not even exist. When even the concept of God was not a matter of mere faith but something that had to pass through the rigors of logic...

[Quick links] [Pause] Once there were 5 blind men. They wanted to ‘see’ how an elephant looks like. Being blind they obviously cannot ‘see’ the elephant. But they were inquisitive and they went on their expedition. After ‘seeing’ the elephant one by one, they gathered in a place to exchange notes on their elephantine experience.

[Quick links] [Pause] In many faith-based religions, this question does not arise at all. It could even be a forbidden question to ask. It is sacrilegious to question the existence of God.  Acceptance of God is the most basic prerequisite. There is no religion if there is no God. But not so in ancient India. India had a completely open system where anyone was free to question anything including Go...

[Quick links] [Pause] Several years ago, I was part of a large institution. This institution used to organize frequent lectures by eminent scholars in various fields.  The Head of this institution used to invite me to attend to all these lectures. The funny thing was that the topics of most of these talks were not directly connected with my field of expertise nor something that was of my interest....

[Quick links] [Pause] Each one of us has our own idea of what our goal is.  One goal that many Yoga enthusiasts have is to enjoy health. To achieve that goal, they ‘twist and turn’ their bodies with the hope of making the body stronger and resistant to illnesses.  They may practice breathing exercises of Yoga to minimize their stress. Since stress is linked to our proneness to illness, they hope t...

[Quick links] [Pause] In the last episode we looked at various things Yoga can achieve. Depending on where you are and where you want to go, you can stop at any intermediate goal. But the real target of Yoga is ultimate realization – the realization of the ultimate truth about this existence – existence as a totality. What this ultimate realization is, is explained in the ancient Upanishads, belie...

[Quick links] [Pause] Depending on what state you are in, and what your expectations are, the goals of Yoga can be different.

[Quick links] [Pause] With no offense meant, this is an important question. Buddha himself once faced this question and he handled it in his own way.

[Quick links] [Pause]   I am happy to announce the release of my 22nd book namely “The ultimate book on Yoga”. This also happens to be my 5th book on Yoga. I have been working on this book for quite some time.  

[Quick links] [Pause] We concluded the previous episode by questioning the Kaivalya concept of Patanjali.

[Quick links] [Pause] If you have ever done a bit of gardening, you very well know how difficult it is to keep the weeds at bay. No matter how many times you pluck them out, they regrow once again. That is because these weeds leave back their seeds before you pluck them out. And these seeds sprout back into new weeds at proper times. So, you will forever face the menace of these weeds. One way is...

[Quick links] [Pause] We were talking about the preset impressions that all of us are born with. Patanjali calls it Avidya or wrong knowledge. How does this Avidya cause problems?

[Quick links] [Pause] We concluded our previous episode by wondering why we cannot remain in an ever-blissful state even after we attain the ‘self-realization’ through the practice of Yoga. The ultimate state of Yoga namely the ‘Samadhi’ is supposed to take us back to our real state – namely a blissful state. But when we come out of this Samadhi, we once again get trapped into a mix of happy and s...

[Quick links] [Pause] It was mandatory in many ancient Indian scriptures or philosophic texts to spell out the ultimate purpose of whatever was going to be espoused in the text before starting the discussion . So, does Yoga have any practical utility? Well, I am not talking about byproducts of Yoga such as health benefits, stress reduction and so on. I am talking about the utility of reaching the...

[Quick links] [Pause] In the previous episode we tried to answer two important questions about the ultimate stage of meditation, namely the Samadhi. Firstly, we argued that Samadhi may not always be a result of some form of mental conditioning.  We also reasoned that the blissful experience that one goes through in the initial phases of Samadhi may not be originated in the brain, though our brain...