Did man go to the moon?

Introduction

As students, we have grown up falling in love with science as an excellent means to understand the world around us. Specially we, Indians, feel so fascinated when modern science presents evidence and reasoning establishing the existence of the soul For example[1] . We feel so proud of our heritage. But when we come to know that, according to the Vedic scriptures, man could not have gone to the moon, we become immensely disturbed. Landing on the moon is globally considered the crowning jewel of all the accomplishments of modern science. To have that conquest declared as a fake is not easy to take. We hate the unpleasant choice that confronts us: choose either science or scripture. “Can’t there be a reconciliation of both?” we wonder. Perhaps only when our most cherished assumptions are challenged do we strive for a higher understanding.

Different scales of observation

According to Vedas, we could not have gone to the moon because it is a higher planet. Without doing good karma, one cannot go there, just as without proper immigration clearance, one cannot go to America. This logic itself reveals a fundamental difference in the Vedic and modern world views and that difference holds the key to a reconciliation of the two.

Modern science sees the moon as a lifeless satellite, whereas Vedic science sees it as Chandraloka, a higher-dimensional planet inhabited by higher beings. Imagine two transparent glass beakers, one containing white chalk powder and the other, black charcoal powder. If we mix the two powders, we will get a grey mixture. But if we see the same mixture under a microscope, the grey particles will disappear; we will see only white and black particles. Which is the reality? Not sure ?  May be both !!!  

What we see varies with our scale of observation. What is a grey powder to the naked eye is a mixture of black and white particles to the microscopic eye. Similarly, what is a lifeless planet at the human scale of observation is a higher-dimensional planet filled with higher beings at a divine scale of observation. Hence the seeming contradiction.

The Vedic texts themselves contain descriptions of cosmology based on both scales of observation. There are two main sources of cosmological information in the Vedic literatures – the Puranas and the Jyotisha-shastras. The Puranas describe cosmology from a divine perspective and they mention many features of the cosmos that are inaccessible to human observation. On the other hand, the Jyotisha-shastras describe cosmology largely from a human perspective. Among the Jyotisha-shastras are works on mathematical astronomy known as astronomical siddhantas. The siddhantic cosmology contains information similar to the information obtained from modern cosmology. For example, the Surya Siddhanta, one of the most important siddhanta-shastras, states:

1. The distance between the earth and the moon as 253,000 miles, compared to modern measurements of 252,710 miles.
2. The Earth’s diameter is 7,840 miles, compared to the modern measurements of 7,926.7 miles.

The very fact that cosmic distances were measured with such precision in Vedic culture long before the dawn of modern cosmology is itself remarkable. It suggests that Vedic cosmology deserves to be studied with due respect, not dismissed summarily as unscientific due to some of its features being currently incomprehensible to us.

Three possibilities

We can’t say for sure what actually happened with the moon flights. Authoritative mathematics textbooks state that three plus three is six. If somebody says, according to his calculations, it’s not six, we know for sure he’s wrong. But we can’t know for sure what answer he got. Similarly, the Vedic scriptures authoritatively state that Chandraloka is a higher-dimensional planet with higher living beings. So if astronauts claiming to have gone there did not encounter any life there, we can know for sure that they have not accessed Chandraloka. But we can’t know for sure where they went.

Still, based on Srila Prabhupada’s[2] statements, we can envision at least three possibilities,” Firstly, let’s understand the concept of a higher dimensional object being projected to a lower dimension. A three-dimensional office address in Mumbai (given by avenue, street and floor) can have a two-dimensional projection (given by avenue and street). Similarly, the higher-dimensional Chandraloka can have a three-dimensional projection, the moon visible to us with the naked eye. No matter how hi-tech our spacecrafts, they cannot take us beyond the three-dimensional reality that our sensory apparatus limits us to. On a map of India, which is a two-dimensional projection of the multi-dimensional reality, India, if I move my finger from Pune to Mumbai, I cannot experience Mumbai – its people, its skyscrapers. Similarly, the astronauts may travel in three-dimensional space to the three-dimensional projection of Chandraloka, but not experience its higher-dimensional reality – Somadeva and the other residents, the heavenly opulences.

Srila Prabhupada said that the astronauts may have been subjected to a hi-tech diversion by the demigods. Consequently, they imagined they had landed on the moon, but had been grounded on some other relatively (relative to Chandraloka) lower planet like Rahu, which is ordinarily invisible to us due to its existing in a dimension higher than ours.

Or the third possibility is that the moon flights may have been hoaxed; the astronauts may never have gone out of the atmosphere of the earth. For example, regarding the first American Apollo flights, there are dozens of books and scores of websites devoted to the moon conspiracy theory with its proponents and opponents both vigorously presenting arguments and counter-arguments. Given the money, prestige, security and technology involved, ascertaining the truth in such projects will be difficult and possibly dangerous.

Where modern cosmology falls short

But if everything depends on the scale of observation, then doesn’t that make everything relative and subjective? Isn’t there a reality? Aren’t scientific theories real? After all, scientific technology works – If we look at the cellphones, the internet, the airplanes. Yes, That’s true. But, doesn’t spiritual technology also work? There are so many researches establishing Mantra meditation helps one to control anger, decrease stress level; spiritually fulfilled people live longer and less prone to diseases and so  many similar facts. So, if what works is the standard to decide what’s real, then even spiritual principles should be considered real.

Different things work at different levels. If our goal is to improve our external comforts and control, to increase our ability to manipulate the world around us, scientific technology works. If our goal is to improve our internal life, to increase our self-mastery, spiritual technology works. Modern science is fabulously successful in controlling a tiny slice of reality, but does it give a satisfactory explanation of the totality of reality?

A quote from Noble Laureate physicist Erwin Schrodinger unequivocally admits the incompleteness of the scientific worldview: ‘I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.’

What to speak of explaining the existence of life on other planets, modern science cannot explain the existence of life on our own planet. We obviously know that life exists here because we exist here. But modern, reductionist science claims that life is a result of chemical combination, but it cannot demonstrate or explain how life arises from chemicals.

Not only can reductionistic science not explain how life arises, it also cannot explain why life arises. It offers no explanation about what the purpose of our existence is or what the values guiding our existence should be. That’s why eminent Indian scientist Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in his book Ignited Minds, quotes Albert Einstein recalling Werner Heisenberg’s words to him: ‘You know in the West we have built a large, beautiful ship. It has all the comforts in it, but one thing is missing: it has no compass and does not know where to go.’

Toward a more complete cosmology

To gain a more holistic understanding of the cosmos, we have to free ourselves from the rigid constructs of Euclidean and Cartesian three-dimensional geometry, which forms the basis of the modern scientific worldview. An important quote in this regard from a remarkable book Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy by the late Dr Richard L Thompson who pioneered the postulation of a new cosmology that integrated scientific and Vedic insights: ‘Radical extensions of our theoretical perspective have taken place repeatedly in the history of science. A striking example of this is provided by the revolution in the science of physics that occurred in the twenties and thirties of this century. At the end of the nineteenth century, physicists were almost universally convinced that classical physics provided a final and complete theory of nature. However, a few years later, classical physics was replaced by a new theory, called quantum mechanics, which is based on fundamentally different principles. The most interesting feature of this development is that classical physics turns out to be compatible with quantum mechanics in the domain of observation in which it was originally applied. The differences between the two theories become significant only in the new atomic domain opened up by the quantum theory. Likewise, our proposed new cosmology would agree with existing theories in its predictions of gross sensory observations, but it would open an entirely new world of higher-dimensional travel.

Higher Dimensional cosmology

At one level, Vedic cosmology is compatible with modern cosmology, as seen from the above agreement in astronomical measurements. At another level, Vedic cosmology is more complete than modern cosmology, because of its ability to account for higher-dimensional cosmic realms, higher living beings and ultimately the higher purpose of life.

Vedic cosmology is innately theistic and spiritual. It is based on the understanding that that we are souls, spiritual beings, temporarily residing in our material bodies. We are all astronauts on a long multi-life cosmic journey through many, many bodies in many different parts of the cosmos. We are the beloved children of the Supreme Being, originally residing in loving harmony with Him in His abode. When we desired to enjoy separate from Him, we were sent to this material cosmos for experimentation and rectification.

The cosmos, the Vedas explain, is created and controlled by God, with the help of numerous assistants called demigods. The demigods are beings much more powerful than us, who reside in the higher regions of the cosmos. Soma, the presiding deity of the moon, is one of the demigods.

The principle of humility is vital in approaching the magnificent works of God like the cosmos. We cannot expect to conquer the cosmos with our intellect and dominate it for our ends. Such an attitude implies that we are trying to become all-knowing and usurp God. This vain attitude will lead only to bafflement, as has happened to many scholars who had a non-devotional approach in their study of Vedic cosmology. A good example of a devotional attitude to cosmic research is the following quote of Johannes Kepler: I have endeavored to gain for human reason, aided by geometrical calculation, an insight into His way of creation; may the Creator of the heavens themselves, the father of all reason, to whom our mortal senses owe their existence, may He who is Himself immortal… keep me in His grace and guard me from reporting anything about His work which cannot be justified before His magnificence or which may misguide our powers of reason, and may He cause us to aspire to the perfection of His works of creation by the dedication of our lives.

The Ultimate cosmic flight

Vedic culture is not against cosmic travel, in fact, the perfection of life, according to the Vedic scriptures, is the ultimate cosmic flight; Vedic culture trains us to become transcendental cosmonauts and fly beyond the moon, beyond the sun, beyond the entire material universe, to the spiritual world, which is our eternal home.

References

1. Near Death Experience, Out of Body Experience, Reincarnation etc
2. A noted vedic scholar and authority in 20th century.

Compiled by Rahul Mishra from the original article by Chaitanya Charan Das.

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Beginnings

The theory of life coming from matter started when Wohler first converted the inorganic molecule ammonium cyanate into the ‘organic’ molecule urea. And this synthesis led him to throw out the notion that certain molecules, termed ‘organic,’ can be made only by ‘vital forces.’

And much later, Miller and Urey showed that amino acids and even some building blocks of the ‘life’ molecule DNA are made by sparking electricity and radiation in a closed glass bulb containing water, ammonia and carbon dioxide.

Dead or lifeless

Commenting on this, a reader noted, correctly, that molecules — be they urea or DNA — are by themselves dead or lifeless.

One may say: “You can’t rejoice that the ‘notion’ of ‘vital forces’ has been thrown out while synthesizing urea and next wonder when ‘life itself’ will be made in the lab. You have to decide whether a molecule of urea is alive, and if not, nothing at all, yet, has been thrown out.

This brings us to the very definition of life itself. In order to call something alive, it needs to do two things.

One is, it should be capable of making more of itself, namely reproduction. And the second is that it should be able to engage in exchange of energy and materials with the environment surrounding it.

These two properties, namely reproduction and metabolism are necessary and sufficient to define a living organism. The operative phrase is ‘necessary and sufficient.’ It is this phrase that disallows the inclusion of viruses into the world of life.

A virus has the information contained within itself for reproduction, in the form of DNA or RNA. But it cannot, by itself, metabolize; it needs a ‘host’ cell for making more of itself. It has to use the machinery of the cell that it attaches itself to. And that cell better be a living one, actively transacting with the environment. Thus a virus is non-living.

Likewise are certain cells that we house and use in our living bodies. Red blood cells are an excellent example. Unlike their neighbours, the white blood cells, they do not have the capacity for reproduction. RBCs do not have the DNA molecule that is necessary for reproduction.

They are thus non-living. Just as a virus is an inert flask that contains the molecular tape necessary for reproduction, red blood cells are inert bags that contain the molecules with which energy exchange or metabolism with the surrounding environment can occur.

First step

Let us now ask: What if we inject DNA from a virus into a red blood cells, will we now have life? The answer is “not yet.” What we have is more like a motor car, which has the engine and the fuel, but one which is parked in the garage. Just as a car engine needs to be started, the DNA-injected red cell too needs to get started.

And how to do so is the million dollar question. It is this challenge that Dr. Craig Venter is attempting to win with his laboratory-made DNA genome of the microbe M. genitalia. He says “It is this ‘kick start’ that we are yet to know how to do. And the one who finds a way to do so will have ‘started’ life. Once this cell is made alive, hopefully it would go on by itself with no further help from the scientist who ‘created’ it.”

Even if they ever manage to do that, did the scientist infuse “vital force” into the dead system? A tentative answer would be: no, he simply repeated what natural forces would have done over 3.5 billion years ago on earth, when radiation or UV light or ionic currents disturbed what is described as ‘the primordial soup’ which contained material akin to the DNA-injected bag of metabolites. The question remains who consciously did it?

Matters become more complex and engaging when we extrapolate such experiments to higher organisms. Bacteria and plants are fine. They do not have brains or a central nervous system; so they do not ‘think’ but are hard-wired to act and respond in defined ways, however complex, creative or even wily these may be. For centuries, we have been creating new plants by grafting and even cloning. Bonsai plants are looked at with artistic appreciation.

But when we turn to animals, which have a central nervous system and an active brain, we enter the realm of learning, decision making, self-awareness, and consciousness. So Life will ever remain an mysterious subject for scientist. At the least some people are assured get their pay packages every month.

Vedic Observer

In the 1980 conference of “Science and Spirituality” one vedic scientist Dr T.D.Singh asked if I give you all the chemicals can the Scientist make life. There was a marked silence in the audience of scientists. Some would have answered may be, but the fact still remains unchallenged that we can’t make life in the laboratory without a participating living entity.

The Vedic literature has a conclusive science of origin of life. In Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says “aham bija pradah pitah” Iam the seed giving father. And even for rationalist the Book Human devolution is a great challenge. It gives credibility to the idea of “Life indeed comes from Life”. The author of the book Dr. Micheal A. Cremo says “We for that matter any life did not evolve up from matter; instead we devolved, or came down, from the realm of pure consciousness, spirit,” . He bases his response on modern science and the world’s great wisdom traditions, including the Vedic philosophy of ancient India. Cremo proposes that before we ask the question, “Where did human beings come from? we should first contemplate, “What is a human being?” Cremo asserts that humans are a combination of matter, mind, and consciousness (or spirit).

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The intellectual community fails to even consider the validity of evidence of reincarnation.
I recently read one of the latest books by Ian Stevenson, entitled European Cases of the Reincarnation Type. Dr. Stevenson is a research professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and he has been doing research on the subject of reincarnation for more than thirty years. Over this period, he has accumulated several hundred accounts of young children who consciously remember details of past lives, exhibit birthmarks or phobias connected with a former person’s death, or even speak fluently in languages with which they have had no prior contact.

Stevenson and his team have rigorously investigated and verified many of these accounts through interviews, historical record searches, and visits to the often-remote areas described by these children. And yet few people are familiar with his work, and even fewer scholars in conventional academic circles address it seriously. Why such indifference? What is it about the intellectual community that prevents it from embracing Stevenson’s research and the idea of reincarnation?

I’m a graduate of the Science, Technology and Society program at Stanford University, and this is not the first time I have thought about the nature of the modern scientific establishment and its relationship with mainstream culture. Among the public there is a perception that scientific inquiry is a dispassionate endeavor that uncovers value-neutral truths about reality. As a result, people are expected to regard scientific knowledge as belonging in a different category than knowledge from other sources, such as opinion, intuition, or scripture. This is justified on the grounds that science is supposedly free from the bias, prejudice, and blind faith that may characterize these other sources.

But this distinction is artificial. Science is far from the objective arbiter of truth it is commonly perceived to be; rather, it is routinely affected by all manner of subjective considerations. Not only these more general mundane influences, but a more profound spiritual one as well, have played a part in the low esteem with which scientists hold Stevenson’s body of work and the concept of reincarnation.

Tainted Perception

The effect of irrational factors on empirical scientific research has been discussed, most notably by Thomas S. Kuhn in his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Among the issues he highlights that I view as bearing on reincarnation are the theory-laden nature of perception, the role of paradigms in scientific research, and the social nature of such research.

The first influence refers to the unconscious effect of existing attitudes and worldviews on what someone perceives. A popular notion is that scientists collect hard facts and then process them in a straightforward, rational way to come up with a theory. Stevenson points out, however, that “prior beliefs influence judgments about evidence; and they influence even more the primary observations that furnish the evidence.” A researcher’s underlying system of values unwittingly shapes the conclusions he or she comes to. What’s more, even the original facts themselves are subjective in that they may mean different things to different people. In this light, the image of the open-minded scientist transparently studying the world to extract an objective truth rings false. What a researcher believes before beginning an investigation necessarily affects what he or she ultimately discovers.

Kuhn cites an interesting psychology experiment as an example of this phenomenon of perceptual bias. In it, the experimenters asked their subjects to identify a series of playing cards that were shown to them in increasingly lengthy exposures. Mixed in with the normal deck, however, were some anomalous cards, such as a red six of spades and a black four of hearts. When the cards were shown in short flashes, almost all of the subjects correctly identified the normal cards but, without hesitation, misidentified the anomalous ones (i.e., they would identify a black four of hearts conventionally as either a black four of spades or a red four of hearts). As the exposure time increased, the subjects started to hesitate in identifying these anomalous cards, until, often quite suddenly, they were able to identify them correctly without difficulty. At first, the subjects fit the strange cards into one of the normal conceptual categories they had derived from experience. Only with an extremely exaggerated exposure time, perhaps forty times as long as that required to identify normal cards, were they able to correctly identify the anomalous cards. One is almost forced to conclude that, until the end, many of the subjects were actually “seeing” something different than what was actually before their eyes.

In terms of reincarnation, this selectivity of perception has affected the way scientists and scientifically minded people have reacted to the same evidence that convinced Stevenson. What to speak of the specific case studies he catalogues, there must be legions of other similar incidents and individuals. Why haven’t these garnered more widespread notice and study? The answer is likely the predisposition in mainstream Western society, even if unconscious, against a belief in transmigration of the soul. Even though some individuals and groups may be found who accept the concept, two views are predominant: either a strictly secular disbelief in the very existence of a soul, or at most a religious belief that accepts only one earthly lifetime. The educational and cultural norms of Western society simply don’t prepare people to be receptive to the idea of reincarnation. Those who do accept it do so in spite of, rather than because of, the underlying biases of their upbringing. Thus, most people, be they scientist or layperson, are predisposed to overlook evidence suggestive of reincarnation, whereas Stevenson, due to his own idiosyncratic background and experiences, was more open-minded and paid heed to such evidence.

Entrenched Paradigms

A second common source of subjectivity in the practice of modern science is the function of paradigms. Kuhn writes that paradigms are fundamental to the practice of normal science. A paradigm is a way of viewing the world and its study shared by a scientific community and connected to a set of generally accepted assumptions, rules, methods, and instruments. A paradigm aids detailed and precise study because those working within it don’t have to build their argument from scratch in every investigation but can proceed from a common base of accepted fundamentals. Rather than splaying out their efforts in sundry directions, they can focus on specific areas of new research consistent with the paradigm and develop elaborate tools and techniques appropriate to these areas.

The problem with paradigms is that, because they are so useful, they become firmly entrenched and are displaced only with great difficulty. The same implicit beliefs and specialized methods that make research efficient and make certain types of progress possible become hindrances to the acceptance of novel beliefs, the development of new techniques, and the achievement of a grander type of progress. Thus, problems and phenomena that don’t fall within the parameters of the dominant paradigm are usually rejected, Kuhn writes, as “metaphysical, as the concern of another discipline, or sometimes as just too problematic to be worth the time.”

This obstinate resistance to change reminds me of a book I read as an undergraduate that compared the modern scientific enterprise to the mythical Jewish golem. This zombielike creature, fabricated from clay, was completely subservient to its creator, with no mind of its own. The point made by the authors was that one can no more expect the scientific establishment to be genuinely flexible and responsive to new information than one could expect the dull, lumbering golem to perform a ballet; both have so much unconscious momentum behind their bulk that they tend to simply roll over anything in their way.

The work of Ian Stevenson has been marginalized precisely because it is not in line with most contemporary paradigms. Despite his volumes of convincing evidence, the idea of reincarnation is anathema to traditional disciplines, and Stevenson’s case studies are explained away on other grounds or rejected outright as unscientific. The logic or elegance of reincarnation as an explanation of many of his observations is irrelevant. There is simply no room in the worldviews or approaches of established scientific communities for disembodied living beings who migrate from one body to another. Thus, only a shift in paradigms is likely to raise Stevenson’s studies to greater prominence.

Self-Preservation

A third influence that colors the practice of science is the social nature of research. Academics are reluctant to embrace ideas that stray too far from established laws and principles because their reputations, and possibly their careers, depend on their credibility and the respect of their peers. At an informal level, scientists usually don’t want to risk being ridiculed or minimized by presenting unconventional theories. At a formal level, researchers may hold prestigious positions or may have been honored with distinctive awards based on work they’ve done related to a particular theory. As a result, they are unlikely to welcome new discoveries that undermine their work.

The temptation to suppress such information by reassigning the “renegade researchers,” cutting their funding, or simply firing them is often too strong to resist. Dr. Richard Thompson and Michael Cremo refer to the effect of this sort of strongly vested interest in maintaining the status quo as a “knowledge filter.” Their work on archaeological anomalies cites several cases in which up and coming scientists were permanently stigmatized for presenting findings that deviated too far from the conventional wisdom (e.g., dating certain types of fossils tens or even hundreds of thousands of years further into the past than was generally accepted at the time).

The scenario is somewhat reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” There was once a vain emperor whose only fondness was for extravagant and refined clothing. A couple of clever scoundrels decided to take advantage of this weakness by making a proposal: for a small fortune, they would weave an outfit for the emperor out of a revolutionary new cloth so fine that it appeared invisible to those too foolish to perceive it. The emperor agreed, and the rascals took advantage of his gullibility by dressing him in nothing at all. When he paraded his new “outfit” before his subjects, however, no one was willing to admit that the emperor was actually naked for fear of appearing too foolish to be able to see the cloth. Finally, a simple child pointed out the obvious, and the crowd took up the cry, leaving the emperor in the ridiculous position of having to finish the procession with a straight face, knowing he was indeed naked.

The response of the intellectual community to Ian Stevenson’s findings is not unlike the response of the crowd to the emperor’s new clothes. Even if some individuals agree with some of his ideas or find some of his evidence persuasive, they are loath to publicly or professionally acknowledge their sympathy for fear of censure from their colleagues. Practically everyone is aware of the weaknesses and limitations of standard explanations for the evidence Stevenson presents, but they think it better to play along and preserve their status than to risk deviating from the norm and being labeled irrational.

Scientific Hubris

The three factors delineated above—the effect of preconceptions on perception, the entrenchment of paradigms in modern science, and the social nature of research—are among the problems, as pointed out by Kuhn and others, associated with a strictly objective and rational image of science. I have indicated how all three probably play a role in keeping professional research communities from appreciating the pioneering work of Ian Stevenson on the subject of reincarnation. I believe another dynamic is at work, however, perhaps more significant and certainly subtler and less well understood: the hubris of modern science.

The goal of scientific research as it exists today is to understand, manipulate, and ultimately master matter. Physicists even speak of a desire to develop a grand uniform theory that would take the form of a few equations (or even a single one) that could be printed on a T-shirt. In their search for truth, scientists tend to rely solely on their own intellect and innate abilities in making new discoveries. “Man is the measure of all things” is their motto, and the infinite potential of the human intellect is their creed. Even those who believe in God relegate him to the background, as at most the initiator of a universe now completely mechanistic and rational. Indeed, scientific inquiry is predicated on the belief that the universe is a riddle answerable through human endeavor. The privileged position in society of science as a whole, and of scientists as individuals, rests on this belief.

Higher Sources of Information

Phenomena such as reincarnation that indicate a reality beyond the reach of the microscope and telescope remind scientists too poignantly that their collective sense of mastery is only illusory and threaten their high status. The fact is that empiric research, such as that of Ian Stevenson, can take us only so far in understanding the transmigration of a nonmaterial soul. Even if they accepted his work, researchers of reincarnation would be forced to turn to other sources of information, such as scripture, to more fully understand it. To do this they would have to admit their dependence on an authority higher than themselves. Such submission is anathema to the very spirit of contemporary scientific inquiry, however, and so it ends up being much easier to reject reincarnation altogether.

If only scientists were able to accept a more humble stance, they could take fruitful advantage of the Vedic literature of India, which represents a coherent source of information on reincarnation and other topics not addressed by mainstream science. The Vedic literature explains that the true nature of the universe is in fact inconceivable to ordinary human perception, and information about it must ultimately descend from God through his messengers and revealed scriptures. Among such scriptures is the Bhagavad-gita, which informs us that we are all eternal spirit souls who belong in the spiritual sky with the Supreme Lord. There we are all immortal and full of complete knowledge and uninterrupted happiness. Due to a desire to enjoy separately from the Lord, however, we have been forced to descend to this material world and endure the cycle of repeated birth and death. Here we must reincarnate through various species of life until we again accept the supremacy of God, or Krishna, and are allowed to re-enter his realm. Until then, the actions of our current life determine what our next material body will be.

Significantly, the Vedic understanding of reincarnation doesn’t preclude its systematic study and experimental investigation. That is to say, scientific research could go on, but simply in a different spirit (and perhaps with some different theories and tools). Rather than approaching the study of nature as the lords of all they survey and pretending that scientific research as currently practiced is a completely reliable source of objective truth, the intellectual community would have to acknowledge its limitations, some of which have been described in this article, and adopt a more appropriate humility.

In this mood, scientists could begin to embrace reincarnation based on Stevenson’s work, and then turn to the Vedic scriptures for further guidance and information. The texts themselves guarantee that such a sincere cultivation of knowledge will result in genuine realization and verifiable truth. Backed by a robust and well-grounded understanding of reincarnation, scientists could offer society answers to some of its most pressing questions: Why do some people suffer and some people prosper in their present lives? They are simply experiencing the results of actions taken in their past lives. Why should people be moral and avoid sinful activities? By doing so, they ensure a better next life.

Of course, the ultimate understanding of reincarnation enunciated by the Vedic scriptures is that we should try to break free from the cycle of repeated birth and death by reconciling ourselves with God. As soon as we surrender unto him, he promises us in the Bhagavad-gita, he’ll fill our hearts with complete knowledge of everything to be known. And we’ll get to live with him in eternal bliss to boot. What more could any scientist hope for?

By Navin Jani

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The notion that antioxidant supplements such as vitamins C and E could slow ageing has been dealt a blow by a scientific study showing that the theory behind the advice is wrong.

Beloved of health food shops and glossy magazines alike, antioxidants have long been peddled as preventative pills that have the ability to slow ageing and protect against diseases such as cancer. But the research has shown that the molecular mechanism proposed to explain how they work is mistaken.

David Gems, at University College London, who led the study, said: “It really demonstrates finally that trying to boost your antioxidant levels is very unlikely to have any effect on ageing.”

The dominant theory for ageing has been around since the 1950s; it blames glitches in cells caused by the damaging byproducts of our metabolism. As cells break down sugars to release energy, they also unleash reactive forms of oxygen such as superoxide. These supposedly cause the damage which is the hallmark of ageing.

Gems’ team set about testing the theory that raising or lowering the body’s natural defences against superoxide could affect an individual’s lifespan: make the defences stronger, and lifespan should increase; make them weaker, and it should decrease.

As it would be unethical to experiment on humans, his team used the nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans. By tweaking its genes, the scientists were able to “tune” the worms’ natural defences - enzymes it produces to tackle superoxide. However, this made no difference to the worms’ lifespan.

“You can drastically change the natural defence levels and there’s just no effect on ageing,” said Gems, who published his results yesterday in the journal Genes and Development. He added that molecular damage was probably caused by numerous different chemicals within the cell.”With increasing lifespan comes greater exposure and vulnerability to the ageing process,” said Alan Schafer, head of molecular and physiological sciences at the Wellcome Trust. “Research such as this points to how much we have to learn about ageing, and the importance of understanding the mechanisms behind this process. This new study will encourage researchers to explore new avenues in ageing research.”

Gems’s findings coincide with a recent US study on the effectiveness of antioxidants against cancer. The clinical trial on nearly 15,000 men tested whether vitamin C and E supplements were effective against the disease. After following the subjects for several years, researchers found no statistical difference in the number of cancers between the groups taking the vitamins and those on a placebo.

According to Vedic literatures ageing and death are inevitable. Everything created has to be destroyed that’s the law of nature. The scientist effort to remain eternal is nothing but a mirage ever elusive. As Bhagavad Gita 2.22 states

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