Tryst with God!!

My relationship with God is quite simple. I strongly believe that He exists all around us and willing to take care of anyone who comes under His shade. I'm reiterating this very simple and age-old fact because at one point of time I even reached to a conclusion that for the very origins of us and the Universe around us, there is no requirement of magical hand of God as described by the Laws of Science.  I was desperately in search of truth that made me to take a fascinating journey of understanding the scientific version which always looks for evidence, which was quite convincing that I almost turned atheist!!!.

How I had comeback out of this flawed philosophy is altogether a different story which is not central theme of this post.  As of now, I consider Him to be a Wise friend and talk to Him as a friend. For I, right from the childhood believed that its pure feelings from our heart that matters to Him the most than anything else like performing pujas etc.

I‘m a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba. I still wonder how I had turned to His devotee because it was spontaneous and it had happened so naturally that I always enjoyed that feeling. So this incident happened while I was reading the book  “Shri Saibaba Satcharitra Parayanam” which was meant to be completed within 7 days.  A must read for Every Sai devotee, as it explains the life works of Shirdi Sai.   I was also told that Shiridi Sai would test us during these 7 days.

On the Fourth day of reading Parayanam, I was waiting on the road side to catch an auto to office near Dilshuknagar. I just happen to turn around to see a blind person about 40 metres away making an effort to come near to the road. He was struggling to a lot and even narrowly missed hitting a bus. I was already late and neglecting the blind person, I was trying to hire an auto directly to office. The next time when I turned around, he was standing behind me helplessly. I was in great dilemma whether to help him or proceed to office as it was already late. But somehow I decided to help him and turned around to ask him “Do you want to cross the road?”  . He said “Yes”. I took his hand and helped in crossing the road. After crossing the road, I asked him “Where do you want to go from here”. He said “Sai Baba temple”. I was shocked and a sudden chill went through my spine!!. I finally realized that Baba wants to test me and asked the person immediately whether I could take him to Baba temple. He simply said “No” and vanished into the crowd. 

For some, this might be a trivial incident, But for me, this little incident is an eye opener as it was clear manifestation of God himself and His care for everyone who takes His shade. After finishing the Parayanam, I simply wished for this 

“Let the World around me, be happy especially my dear ones

by fulfilling their dreams and blessing them with Joyful life ahead

and guiding them in needy situations to lead a happy and peaceful Life ”

May blessings of Baba be there upon you all the time:)

The Story of our Universe Part 2:The Turning Point

 

(To continue reading Part 2 , please refer Part 1 : Asking Questions)

The Geo-centric model of Ptolemy gained wide popularity among astronomers around the world. Astronomers started making measurements or rather predictions of planetary motions based on observations. They have encountered certain problem with the motions of planets like Venus. Many Muslim Astronomers from 8^th  to 10^th Century  like Al-Khwarizmi extended their contributions by fine tuning the Geo-centric model, though it never solved the problem about planetary motions.

Though by 16^th Century, many astronomers doubted the Geo-centric model, but they failed to come up with alternative theory.  It was work of Tycho Brahe, a Danish nobleman (refer picture below) whose remarkable collection of data which was the most accurate data available till his time pertaining to motion of celestial objects which he obtained using his Instruments( refer picture below)  that led to the next break-through in our journey. 

  

   

 

Based on the data provided by the Tycho Brahe , Copernicus , a German Astronomer made his own calculation based on this data and came to startling conclusion that to describe the motion of planets , The sun must be at the centre and all other planets including the Earth must be rotating. Thus he developed the so called “The Helio-centric Theory”   i.e., with the sun at the centre, and all other planets revolving around the sun in perfect circles.

Helio Centric Theory

Copernicus

                                                                                            

It was a revolutionary idea that would have very serious implications on the world. Though Copernicus was very confident about his calculations, he only published his theory in his book  “On Revolutions of Celestial Spheres”   only at very later stage of his life. But when the world came to know about his theory, The Holy Church was against to this idea and so does the rest of the world.

To the astronomers around the world, this theory was a daring proposition and they set out to find out the truth. One of them was Keppler, a German astronomer further added to this theory that the planets revolve around the Sun not in Circular orbits but rather in Elliptical Orbits as shown below.

During the 16^th Century, the world was introduced to telescopes as toys that would magnify an object. But one astronomer had a different idea altogether, he developed a special telescope that could magnify an object 10 times. He was Galileo Galilee, a Italian Astronomer. He was first Human being to  gaze at the universe with his telescope. What a remarkable feeling Galileo must have felt by seeing the universe with a naked eye..

  Galileo made a detail record of what he has observed. His observations led him to conclude that Helio centric theory offers the best description of the world around. 

The first ever Telescope

The moon as seen through the telescope

Galileo supported the heliocentric theory with practical observations that could be seen with his telescope. But the Church readily did not accept this idea. The Church decided to prosecute Galileo for his support of heliocentric theory as it rejects the idea that the world was created as described by Geo-centric theory which was work of the God himself. Thus, officially the clash of ideology between Religion and Science has began. In this prosecution by the Church, Galileo was all-alone in this battle. He was at the mercy of the Church. He lost the battle against the Church and was house arrested for the rest of his life. This was done to him just for stating the fact which we regard very obvious in 21^st century. But it is just unimaginable to think the struggle he must have faced. As time passed on after his death, more and more evidence poured in about the Helio centric theory, thus causing the Church to accept the Helio centric theory as the Work of God himself and rejecting the idea of Geo-centric model of universe which lasted for about 1500 years unchallenged.

Prosecution  Session of Galileo by the Holy Church

Galileo in his last days

 Helio-centric theory explained the Sun was at the centre and the rest of planets revolved around the sun. But it was never able to explain what caused the planets to revolve? In our journey to understand the universe, it is time to meet one of the most brilliant mathematician ever lived on the surface of the Earth..

Sir Isaac Newton

Let us look at the Part 3 of our Journey to understand the Universe in the next post ..

The Story of Our Universe- Part 1

How did the Universe come into existence?

Why is the universe the way we see around us?

We all at one point or the other in our life must have asked ourselves the above questions about the universe.As an ardent follower of Science, I have always been deeply fascinated by the mysteries of the universe especially about its origins. I always used to wonder what could be the answer for the following above questions.  And thus, I began my quest to understand it. I immediately realized that there are only two possible routes to find a possible answer to these mysteries.

1.  The Path of Science
2.  The Path of Religion

I took both the paths to understand the universe. The Path of Religion only made me realize that for these questions, the obvious answer is God. Often described as The Supreme, The Invincible, The Creator, The Destroyer and many other names, we were made to believe right from our Childhood that there is someone out there in the skies who is watching us and will grant us anything we wish for, only if, we lead a life as described by Him and His Messengers and thus, according to our acts, we are ensured our berth in Heaven or Hell accordingly. I’m not here to argue about His Existence, that’s not the topic of this discussion, but if asked whether I believe in God, Yes is my answer and He created the Universe we see around.  But at the same time, I certainly believe the fact that the Universe was not created the way as often described in our Sacred Books of Religion. Every Sacred book has its own version of Creation, thus leading to chaos. For example, the Abrahamic religions like Islam, Christianity & Judaism agree that the Universe was created spontaneously in just Six days and God took rest on Seventh Day which is quite different version from what Hinduism and many other states. I certainly believe that God must have left it out for us to figure out ourselves about the origins and so He devoted most of His work making us understand the path that we all need to follow to reach Him, through His Messengers. After all what’s the point of spoon feeding everything?.

For most of us, we are not at all bothered as to how God might have created the universe as it is a past event and cannot affect our daily lives. We are more concerned about our present and future, striving harder to lead a happy and peaceful life.  But for some people understanding the origins of universe  became their entire life’s work for which they have earned respect of the whole mankind which will also be highlighted apart from their contribution in this topic.

The more I try to know about the universe, the more mysterious it becomes. It is perhaps the most complex thing the humankind has ever came across. In this 21^st century we may be nearing to answer few of  the most complex questions by using the Six billion dollars worth “The Large Hadron Collider” facility to  unlock the mysteries of atoms which are conducted at the CERN, Switzerland.This may ultimately help us solve some mysteries  and pave way for some more deep mysteries of the universe ,after all  the universe will never stop to challenge us until we reach the final truth.

The Entire picture of our Universe

 The above picture is a computer simulated model of our complete universe. This was only possible today  because of the latest Super Computers that can do calculations at staggering speeds of more than One PFLOPS/Sec  ( 10 ¹⁵  Operations per second). Each Bright spot in the picture represents billions and billions of galaxies. And each galaxy is collection of billions of stars. Out of these Stars, one star i.e., The Sun is about which our Planet Earth rotates. Isn’t it mind boggling to realize this fact? It just makes feel how tiny we are before it.

In this series, I would like to make an attempt to present  the views of scientific community from the past to present about the origins of our universe in a simple lucid explanation, not involving any complex mathematics that even a glimpse of it will scare you and this, mind you is my interpretation of what I have learned through watching a number of documentaries on this topic.In this journey of our understanding , we can also notice one remarkable thing about science is that a theory proposed by someone is not accepted until and unless it is proved by means of verifiable and repeatable physical parameters which can be conducted by anyone who has understanding of it. It is remarkable to see how science proposes a theory and shatters it by a new theory and mind you this is a iterative process which continues until to that point where we are only left with nothing but  the absolute truth.

I only intend to write this so as to make myself organize the data that i have learned and also have a better understanding about the origins of the universe.The copyrights of all the images used in this post belong to their respective owners .

Part 1:  Asking Questions

In the beginning, say some thousands of years ago, our understanding was very limited. As our mind evolved with passage of time, it became curious to know the things around it, because understanding of surroundings led ultimately to its survival itself. At the same time, it made an attempt to make sense of the mysteries that it happen to encounter. One of such things is the Universe. And it made sense by the idea that the Universe and the Life was created by an Invisible and Invincible force of the universe. The God.

This was the way our ancestors depicted the Universe as the creation of God which is very widely accepted idea today. But the important question is not whether God created everything or not, But  how God created this Universe. The only way to do was by asking questions and making careful observations of things around them. And thus mankind set himself on a journey to unlock the mysteries of the Universe, since God did not gave a clear picture of how he created the Universe even if he did, it was often different versions to different people.

Frightening the Moon to save Sun God!!

             

Our attempt to understand the universe dates back to some 5000 years ago by Babylonian Astronomers who perceived the Earth was flat which was floating in ocean. The first noticeable observation of our Universe on the Earth was that of solar Eclipse, where the moon comes in between the path of Sun God- The giver of light, thus causing darkness in a bright daylight. Our ancestors spread across the Earth had their own perceptions of this event. One among them was, to save The Sun God as he has been swallowed by moon , they were suppose to frighten the moon with their weapons and remarkably this worked , and frightened  moon escapes the spot immediately to avoid the anger of the Sun devotees as depicted in the above picture. Though this interpretation of Solar Eclipse seems to be funny, but it’s quite remarkable that even more than 2500 years ago, our ancestors made very careful observations of the things around them and  made an attempt to understand these mysteries in their own way.

Aristotle

 The first person to make an attempt to understand the universe was Aristotle, who lived around some 2300 years ago in Greece. Until then all his precursors with naked eye were able to make out that the Earth which was spherical in shape and was surrounded by some five Planets which they named them after their Gods.  Later on Aristotle made some remarkable conclusions based on his observations, one of which was that the Solar Eclipse is caused by moon coming in between the path of Sun rays and further he concluded that the Sun was the Centre of Universe.      

                

Ptolemy

            

Earth Centered Model of Universe

It was work of a Greek astronomer, Ptolemy in 1^st Century AD that put forth this idea of Earth Centered Model of Universe which is also known as Geo-centric model of universe, in which earth was centre and all other planets were revolving around the Earth in perfect circular orbits. Though there were certain problems associated with this model, but it was widely accepted as the Standard description of Universe which explained many phenomenons observed at that time like day and night etc (depicted in the above diagram). The Holy Church immediately accepted this idea as it left room for heaven and hell beyond the Stars and preached this as the work of God himself.

This model of universe was left unchallenged for about 1500 years, but the curiosity to understand the mysteries of universe never died. The thing that needs to be highlighted here is that these people made foundation for their successors to understand the Universe using careful observations. It took the following brilliant people Copernicus, Keppler and  Galileo along with countless people to overthrow the existing idea of Geo-centric model of our Universe.

Copernicus

 

Keppler

 

Galileo

Let us look at the Part 2 of our Journey to understand the Universe in the next post " The Turning point"

Religion & Science

( Few thoughts on my journey of understanding Science & Religion )

We, the humans have a very special place in this vast universe.We have a very brief history on this Planet Earth about a few thousand years only. When man became conscious about the things around him i.e nature, he firmly believed that there must be a magical hand behind Nature. Thus he began his quest in understanding this magical hand which he named as God.

With this emerged the term 'Religion' with God as the Supreme Head of Universe and His set of guidelines for His faithful followers for Salvation, a place near & dear to God. Thus came into picture the following religions with remarkable events surrounding them like Hinduism, Christianity , Islam, Judaism, etc. with their own set of beliefs. Some follow the idea of monotheism and other polytheism etc. This led to the clashes between these ideologies for centuries which led to brutality among humans the world has ever seen before, all in the name of religion.

But on the other hand religion brought revolutionary changes in arts , music,education, technology , science etc . In the forefront was Christianity with Pope as its Head. St Augustine in 5th century was the first to give a relationship between Science & Religion. He laid out set of rules for Science & championed the discoveries of Science as long as they do not conflict with religious beliefs of that time.

The Popes believed that discoveries of Science will only reinforce their religious beliefs about God and encouraged it. But something went wrong. Instead of reinforcing their faith , it questioned its faith itself. With Copernicus starting this scientific revolution in 15th century. Later on carried by Galileo. Galileo was prosecuted by church for supporting the idea of Copernicus's Solar System with Sun at its centre as against to their belief that Earth was at the centre. In 1859, Charles Darwin's theory of Evolution challenged the idea of creation of humans by God. The 20th Century witnessed the emergence of scientific theories that would explain the Origin of Universe(OoU) like Big Bang Theory , String Theory etc as the front-runners. With the biggest ' Particle Accelerator' the world has ever seen , Science may finally give a clear picture about the Origin of Universe .

The remarkable feature of science is that it follows this line ' Theory- Experiment- Validation'. It always keeps six honest friends serving .They are Who, What, Why, How , Where , How & When, always questioning everything in its path to truth. On the other hand Religion whose basis is on faith, firmly sticks to its Holy Books with abundant resistance to change. The Power of Science lies in its ability to change based on evidence , if big bang cant explain the Origin of Universe , some other theory will.

Finally , in the times ahead, the biggest threat that the religion has to deal with is.. SCIENCE .

Mission Accomplished..........

In a way that would strike fear in the hearts of its enemies , India successfully test fired, three of its ballastic missiles with in a span of 24 hrs . This mega mission named 'Sanklap' was carried out by both the Armed forces and DRDO . The three missiles Pridhvi, Dhanush and Agni 1 met all the mission objectives making it as a text book flights.

I congratulate our DRDO team for successfully carrying out the mission and wish to see more of these in the future ...

The Chauffeur's Show

( This is a short story about Albert Einstein and his chauffeur. This was told to me by my friend Srinath, though later on I found out that this is fictitious.)

Albert Einstein. The name needs no introduction. He is the most respected scientist for toppling the view of the scientific community about the world around us with his 'theory of relativity'. As a scientist, he is invited to give lectures about his fascinating theories in various eminent universities. Einstein maintained a car along with chauffeur and drove all around to give lectures.

One day when Einstein was about to get down the car to give lecture at a university, the chauffeur dared to ask Einstein " Sir, I have attended almost all the lectures you had given and I 'm so well versed with your presentation that I know every word you are going speak today. With your permission I would like to present your lecture as Einstein before the audience. Please trust me and give me a chance."

Einstein was taken aback about what chauffeur had asked. Einstein did his own calculations about the pros and cons of this adventure like nobody recognized him around this university and this chauffeur can be trusted. After satisfying himself, Einstein agreed but warned about the question and answer section. The Chauffeur said " I wont let you down. Trust me".

Einstein and his chauffeur exchanged their suits. Einstein got down as a chauffeur and made way for chauffeur who is now the acting Einstein. The acting Einstein went on to the stage to deliver his lecture while real Einstein sat near the last rows of the seminar hall. The presentation went on quite very well. The acting Einstein was clarifying the queries remarkably well. The real Einstein was quite happy for this adventure.

As the session was coming to an end, a professor who is the head of department has raised a query that stunned the real Einstein. He immediately understood that he can only answer this question and now his reputation is at stake. The acting Einstein after hearing the question chuckled and said " Professor ,I think it's quite simple question. Its so simple that even my chauffeur can answer this question!!!!". Everyone was stunned by this reply. He called his chauffeur, the real Einstein to clarify this doubt. The real Einstein rushed to stage and clarified it beyond any doubt.

That's how the chauffeur's presence of mind saved the reputation of the Einstein.