The Art Of Pseudoscience (Featuring The Gayatri Mantra)- A Five Step Program
Long before the arrogant West coined the term “pseudoscience”, the ancient Indians already knew about it. It is an art that is inherent in the self and manifests through inner pro-activeness, yogic leverage and spiritual actualization. Unfortunately, the modern mind which has been corrupted by western thought, cannot comprehend the sublime supremeness of the ancient art. So I, who is dubbed “Sri Sri….∞ ” Anantananda Swami, will explain the divine art in modern terms, using the science of Gayatri Mantra as an example.
The Gayatri Mantra is a primal force in the Universe. The scientific nature of it has been explained by an ecstatic soul sometime back in the incoherent past. Allow me to demonstrate how the art of pseudoscience was put to use in the creation of that exalted piece of literature.
Step 1: Start with the stating of known facts. Here they are about the stars and planets of the Milky Way galaxy:
The modern astrophysics and astronomy tell us that our Galaxy called Milky Way or Akash-Ganga contains approximately 100,000 million of stars. Each star is like our sun having its own planet system. We know that the moon moves round the earth and the earth moves round the sun along with the moon. All planets round the sun.
Step 2: Make a subtle transition from the logical to the illogical:
Bhur the earth, bhuvah the planets (solar family), swah the Galaxy. We observe that when an ordinary fan with a speed of 900 RPM (rotations Per minute) moves, it makes noise. Then, one can imagine, what great noise would be created when the galaxies move with a speed of 20,000 miles per second.
The statement that a fast rotating fan makes some noise is a fact. But that happens only when there is a medium to conduct sound. If a fan rotates in vacuum, whatever its speed be, there will be no sound. By ignoring the fact that sound needs a medium to propagate, the author has subtly made a transition into the illogical by stating that a rotating galaxy also makes a sound implicitly assuming that it propagates through vacuum.
Step 3: Now that the illogical has been established as a fact, use it to declare a truth:
This is what this portion of the mantra explains that the sound produced due to the fast-moving earth, planets and galaxies is Om. The sound was heard during meditation by Rishi Vishvamitra, who mentioned it too their colleagues. All of them, then unanimously decided to call this sound Om the name of God, because this sound is available in all the three periods of time, hence it is set (permanent).
Step 4: Spice it up with more scientific sounding terms and some non-sequiturs:
This sound Om heard during samadhi was called by all the seers nada-Brahma a very great noise), but not a noise that is normally beyond a specific amplitude and limits of decibels suited to human hearing. Hence the rishis called this sound Udgith musical sound of the above, i.e., heaven.
They also noticed that the infinite mass of galaxies moving with a velocity of 20,000 miles/second was generating a kinetic energy= 1/2MV2 and this was balancing the total energy consumption of the cosmos.Hence they named it Pranavah, which means the body (vapu) or storehouse of energy (prana).
Step 5: Finally reinterpret the original text with the illogically concluded facts:
The earth (bhur), the planets (bhuvah), and the galaxies (swah) are moving at a very great velocity, the sound produced is Om, (the name of formless God.) That God (tat), who manifests Himself in the form of light of suns (savitur) is worthy of bowing / respect (varenyam). We all, therefore, should meditate (dheemahi) upon the light (bhargo) of that deity (devasya) and also do chanting of Om. May He (yo) guide in right direction (prachodayat) our (nah) intellect (dhiyo).
There it is. A holy-five-step-program to make anything sound true. It is guaranteed to bring you joy and happiness and more importantly, money. Interested souls can prostrate before me and I will teach a much more potent form of that art.
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Step 2′s rebuttal was only partially correct: it is indeed a fact that sound doesn’t travel in vacuum. Space, however, is not a vacuum. There are tenuous interplanetary gases and dust that do offer a medium for sound/pressure waves to travel. Scientists have even managed to record sounds emitted from regions near black holes, recorded at 50 octaves below Middle C. There is sound in space, just nothing that anybody on Earth can hear.
We know the sounds the Sun and the 8 planets make are nothing like “Om”. Black Holes don’t sound like “Om” either. But there are sounds. They can be found on the NASA website.
Of course, we can’t make any statements as to what the other sounds are, and can’t invalidate the theory that they sound like some hyper-bass equivalent of “Om”. However, the odds against that are definitely infinitesimal!
Gaytri mantra is basically mentioned in Righveda and Yujarveda.Ancient Sanskrit texts have been written in a particular grammer style known as CHUND system.There are mainly seven CHUND for this purpose ,Gaytri being one out of seven.Incidently there are nearly 2450 verses in Righveda which are classified under Gaytri Chund style.There is another aspect of Gaytri mantra. From sanskrit grammer point of view ,said verse is not pure one as it consists of only 23 letters instead of 24 letters and is accordingly known as LANGHDA [crippled] chund.In fact there is nothing special in said verse.Prayer is being offered to Sun God[?]for illumination of intellect with the help of his so called devine power and grace.One fails to understand why only said verse out of 2450 has caught imagination of gullible believers ,while there are so many other verses having compratively better prayer component?I understand this cult has developed due to the fact said verse has been highly decorated and praised in Manusmriti,shankhsmriti and Parsharsmriti.It will be relevant to mentio here some of the devine claims.
1.mere repitative chanting of Gaytri mantra early in the morning will automatically [without study]complete knowledge of Righveda,Samveda and Yujarveda.
2.Mere chanting of Gaytri mantra 1000 times early in the morning will provide MUKHTI[liberation] from all type of committed sin.
3.Mere chanting of Gaytri mantra early in the morning and evening continously for three years will positively help to be super human being with all possible supernatural devine powers.
4.Gaytri mantra is genuine fundamental basis for attaining full quota of materialistic benefits.
It will not be out of way to mention here that Gaytri mantra was extraordinarly glorified with the establishment of Arya Samaj and credit for said glorification goes mainly to Swami Dayanand Sarswati.That explains why Arya Samaji’s in particular are firm and chief protagonists of so called miracaculous panacea devine medicine ,although on ground level blind cult for Gaytri mantra is nothing but utopia and highly popular myth.Who says ignorance is curse on the contrary it is much publicised well decorated myth with majority of Hindu’s.
i am rea;;y interested in furthur knowledge .,., i am a beginner in this field so please guide me…..
Good one Satish,
While Debating Hindus recently.. i have realised that they have moved the standards of a hindu God from what used to be Lord Krsihna/Ram/Shiva to something called a “Nirguna ParaBrahma” / Energy (however this isnt the same energy that we understanad from physics).
This branch of hindu pseudoscience is getting way too much of popularity. They play with words like energy, aura, halo and fool the gulliable !!!
You are right, Sathiajiath. These people twist the meanings of well defined words to make illogical arguments.
I have started a thread on the forums to discuss this corruption of language.