I am providing here a link on my blog to an excerpt of an introductory chapter of a book that critically evaluates the social and cultural impact of Bhagavad Gita (BG) on India. This book “The Role Of The Bhagavad Gita In Indian Life” was written by Premnath Bazaz ( a Kashmiri Pandit and freedom fighter). I have searched high and dry for this book with no success so far. There are really very few works that take a critical and dissenting look at the Bhagavad Gita. The other comprehensive one is ‘The truth of the Gita’ by VR Narla an eminent Telugu journalist. A historian of repute, DD Kosambi has also made some observations about the Gita, but never apparently published any full-fledged study of this scripture. BR Ambedkar analyzed Vedas, Upanishads and other works of Vedic liturgy in a great amount of detail and went through many of flaws of contemporary Hinduism with the precision of a scalpel, but did not write a book per se on the BG. All these four above are no more. And of course none of them except for Ambedkar to some extent were taken seriously. As for those living, other than the blogosphere, there seems to be no writer of repute to bear the cross of questioning the moral and social credentials of BG.

My thoughts upon reading the conventional versions of the Gita

As for me I have read at least four English translations of the Gita and two of them were by Indian authors and also commentaries on some of its verses by spiritual cult leaders like Chinmayananda and Prabhupada. I was struck by the following inconsistencies that were fairly predominant in the scripture:

• Repetitiveness and redundancy of many of its verses
• Contradictions in many of its verses, with some verses in the same chapter contradicting each other and verses in one chapter being negated by verses in another chapter
• Lack of coherence of narrative between the verses in a chapter, verses disconnected from or having no relation to the primary idea of a chapter
• Lack of orderliness in the sequencing of chapters, where one gets a feeling that the current Chapter IV should have come before Chapter III
• Inclusion of verses that are repugnant to human values even going by old primitive standards (verses 9.11, 9.32 and 9.33)

What struck me about the commentaries and other eulogies of the Gita, was that the authors seemed to look at the verses in isolation and whether unintentionally or not, ignore its relations to other verses and chapters and to even broad ideas espoused by the scripture (Karma, moksha, punarjamna, bhakti, atma, ego). Many of such authors are also silent on whether there exists a hierarchy of yoga method (Karma, Jnana, Dhyana, Bhakti etc.) or not, with most taking the line of least resistance which implies any or all yogas are equally good and the more the merrier. The curious part is that when Arjuna poses a few questions about comparative merits of the yogas and which is precedent and/or superior to the other, it is usually met with evasive, political and CYA replies from Krishna, whom our Hindu religious and spiritual cognoscenti never tires of applauding as the greatest and wisest teacher of humanity. Anyone who makes a comparative study of the current state verses of the Gita, devoid of religious blinkers, will find the character of Krishna coming across as very cynical, evasive, inconsistent, shifting philosophical stances according to convenience, mixing ideas of differing schools of thought at will (Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta) without any care or regard for their cogency and coherence. How such an opportunistic and willful entity (seen together with his role in the Mahabharata) be passed off as a God and that too raised to the towering heights of religious and devotional frenzy, may forever remain one of the greatest enigmas of Hindu culture.

The true agenda of the Gita and a history-based speculation of its motives

The few and rare critics of the BG have labored to point to the casteist and sectarian agenda of the BG as the most realistic basis of its composition beneath all its specious and pretentious gloss and dross of philosophy, metaphysics and devotional appeals. To accept the plausibility of such a kind of devious strategy of the Gita, it is important to place into historical context the failure of the two foremost texts of Brahmin theological dogmatism ( Mimamsa Sutras by Jamini and Brahma Sutra by Badarayana) in the post-Vedic age in stemming the rising tide of heterodox movements like Buddhism, Jainism and Lokayata. It is quite likely that both Jamini and Badarayana may well signify pseudonyms of the prominent or active factions of Brahminical demagogues of their times, out to defend the primacy of the Vedas and Upanishads. Which is what they actually tried to do by means of these two long, prolix and tortuous treatises dealing with the relative merits of the two most fond theological dogmas of ‘Karma-Kanda’ (part of life devoted to the act of ritual and propitiation) and ‘Jnana-Kanda’ (part of life devoted to the act of knowledge seeking) and dueling for their primacy. Though both the treatises run into hundreds of verses, with Mimamsa Sutras being the longer of the two, being replete with laborious yet ludicrous arguments to validate the infallibility of the Vedas and Upanishads, they are not worth the paper, leaf or parchments they were written on. In the light of today’s atmosphere of rational and critical thinking, it is amazing that these tomes, whose utterly primitive and nonsensical philosophy can be demolished with a few pages of questioning and critical analysis, were the subject of many long running debates. When four orthodox brahminical philosophies (Sankhya, Mimamsa, Nyaya and Vedanta) could not deter the march of the simple yet appealing thought system of Buddhism, the shrewd Brahmin strategists of the era of post-Mauryanism unsheathed the ultimate weapon of the Bhagavad Gita, which was a clever mish-mash of philosophy, social rules, creationism and devotion tailored to sound like a very good clone of the Bible and the Koran. Thus BG provided a tottering Brahminism the resilience and vigor to overthrow Buddhism and take Indian civilization back to the dark ages, from which it has never emerged into light.

Where Dr Kamath’ and Bazaz’s views on Gita’s authorship meet

What inspired me into a ‘forensics’ of the Gita, were some articles in the blogosphere, specifically Nirmukta’s BG series by Dr. Kamath, which explored these red flags of contradictions by quoting and comparing many of its verses esp Chapters 2, 3 & 4, where most of the philosophical conflicts between the Vedic, Upanishadic and Bhakti schools of thought come through in some of its more confusing verses. This probably prompted his hypothesis of the multiple authorships of the BG along with suspicions of its varied interpolations, additions and corruptions. While I was sparring with a dyed-in-the-wool Hindu nationalist of my acquaintance, on a different related issue, this charge was dismissed by him as a standard Marxist line. This introduction from the book of Bazaz, explores this theme in quite a bit of detail, quoting historians on both sides of the fence of this argument, with their theories and observations. The author of course leans to the side of naysayers of Gita, but advances many reasonable arguments in his defence I don’t know if the taint of Marxism will ever go away for critics and dissenters of religious obscurantism, but I hope this discussion and article may be found to be of some interest.

Related posts:

1. More Truths About the Bhagavad Gita
2. A Critical Look At Neo-Hindu Religious And Spiritual Fads
3. A Critical Look At Baba Ramdev’s Claims
4. Critical Thinking: A Video By QualiaSoup On Youtube
5. The Gita Becomes The Battlefield For The Great Sectarian War

Let me assume hypothetically that Mahabharat is real history and Krishna was a god in human form :

Gitopadesh and Reality check

When we discuss the Gita, the thing that strikes us at the outset is that the occasion and place for preaching of the Gita was highly inappropriate for such a philosophical discourse. When armies are standing in array on the battlefield with the chariot horses and elephants straining at their reins, we cannot believe that anyone could think of preaching deep philosophy, and that too at such length.

The Gita consists of about 700 stanzas which are difficult to understand without suitable explanation. Let us assume that the recitation and explanation of each stanza took at least one minute ( Chinmayananda took 30 minutes for this), which is by no means an estimate on the high side. In that case, it would have taken 700 minutes or more than 11 hours for a complete exposition of the entire text, by which time the entire battle would have been lost.

One can believe that Krishna gave some advice to convince Arjuna to fight, but preaching on the battlefield a philosophy extending over eighteen chapters strains our credulity to the limit.

Validity of Krishna’s arguments

Let us look at the arguments advanced by Krishna to convince Arjuna to wage war against his cousins and elders, and take a look at the logical and moral disputations.

In the first argument, Krishna explains the nature of Atman (soul). He says that atman is neither born nor does it die– it is unborn, everlasting, immutable and primeval. It is not killed, though the body is killed. Just as a man casts off old clothes and puts on new ones, so does atman cast off an old body and becomes united with a new one. As for the body, Krishna says that it is inherently mortal, non-permanent, destructible, and will come to an end if not today, then tomorrow or after a 100 years. As atman definitely acquires another body in accordance with its previous actions (reincarnation theory), it is not proper to lament the loss of the old body. In other words, since Bhishma’s (or for that matter anyone else’s) soul cannot be killed, there is absolutely no harm in killing him.

Disputation : If this be so, then a muder should no longer be considered a crime–it is only an act of liberating the soul from the clutches of the vile body. If atman is immortal and the body comes to an end sooner or later, does it justify our killing other persons ? It is true that the Kauravas would have died their natural deaths some day, but that could not be a justification for Arjuna to kill them today.

His second argument is that Arjuna is a Kshatriya and it is his caste duty to fight, in keeping with the principle of Karmayoga.

Disputation : Does this mean that a kshatriya should necessarily fight even when there is no valid cause for doing so ? Unless the fighting is justified, a kshatriya is certainly not required to fight other people, especially his kith & kin.

The third argument given in sloka 35 of chapter 11 is : ” All masters of the great chariots will think that you withdrew from the battle on account of fear and those by whom you are highly thought of today, will hold you in less esteem. Also your enemies, seeing your weakness will speak much about you that should not be spoken. What can be more painful than that ?”

Disputation : The opinion of other people is not a valid reason for a man to fight. Moral courage lies in defying such opinions if they are wrong. If the soul is everything and the rest is ‘maya’ , why is it that such an illusionary thing as a warrior’s reputation becomes the only real thing worth saving !

The fourth argument is that ” If you get killed you will go to heaven, if victorious, you will enjoy on earth. Therefore, arise, o ! Arjuna and determine to do battle”.

Disputation : This kind of argument is an encouragement for adventurers and soldiers of fortune to kill other people for the sake of land and property, but not an encouragement for just and honest people to fight.

Conclusion : Thus we see that none of the above arguments are logically valid or morally sound. Arjuna should not have yielded for the sake of worldly pleasures, to commit the heinous sin of killing his kinsmen.

Battle of Kurukshetra. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kurukshetra.jpg

Did Krishna & Pandava brothers practice the principle of desireless action themselves ?

Everybody talks about the stanza no. 47 in chapter 2 :

Karmanye vadhikarasthe ma phaleshu kadachana
Ma karma phala heturbhu mathe sangosova akarmani

Meaning : To action alone you have a right, and never at all to its fruits ; Let not the fruits of action be your motive, Neither let there be in you any attachment to inaction.

Let us see how far the Pandavas and Krishna himself acted on this principle of desireless action. Did not the Pandavas, with the help of Krishna, fight with the desire to vanquish and kill their enemies ?

1. If they did not desire ardently to kill Dronacharya, why did they ask Yudhishtir to lie about the death of Dronacharya’s son “Ashwathama” ?
2. Why did Krishna by deceit make Jayadrath think that the sun had set and thus put him off his guard, and then shoot him with an arrow ?
3. Bhishma was killed because he would not fight Shikandi, who was born a female and later became a man and Arjuna sheltering himself behind Shikandi shot Bhishma in such an unchivalrous manner.

Were all these actions performed in a desireless manner regardless of the fruit of their actions ? Did practice follow precept ? Or, is it that Gods and the people blessed by Gods can do whatever they want with impunity, and do not have to practice what they themselves preach ?

So you can all see why the BG is immoral even if it is history and just BS !!!

Conclusion :

Then there is the small matter of the truth of it all. Was there a god in the shape of Krishna and was there a Mahabharat war and were all those people real people ? Very doubtful. It belongs to the genre of Panchatantra/Jataka tales, Aesop’s fables, Anderson’s fairy tales or Harry Porter’s escapades. Fun to read may be, but not to be taken seriously. I say this although I belong to a family of priestly brahmins who believe that Gita is a holy scripture and is infallible.

Related posts:

1. Bhagavad Gita – Another critical perspective to consider adding to its armory of refutation
2. The Gita Becomes The Battlefield For The Great Sectarian War

The 2011 Nobel Prizes were announced recently at a ceremony held in Europe. It is rather sad that no Muslim was able to garner this prestigious award. After all Muslims constitute 21 percent of the total world population and are around 1.57 billion. It is an irony that so far the Muslim world has produced only nine Nobel laureates since the inception of this award by Alferd Nobel in 1895.

This statistic seems even more horrifying if the Peace Prize winners are excluded from this list which leaves it with only two Nobel laureates in the field of science namely Dr Abdus Salam in Physics and Ahmed Zewail in Chemistry. Moreover, Dr. Salam was hounded and persecuted in his home country on account of his Ahmedi faith and is not even considered a Muslim. His numerous achievements were never acknowledged. In fact the word “Muslim” was officially erased from his gravestone. On the contrary, Jews who make up 0.20 percent of the total world population at 13.2 million, have had 178 Nobel Prize winners.

This pathetic state of affairs depicts that there is something seriously wrong in the Muslim world. After all Muslims were one of the pioneers of modern science. The period between 9th and 13th century is considered as the golden age of Islam. Although some of the ideas were translated from the Greeks and Romans, there were also original concepts brought up by Muslim scientists. Al Razi made significant contributions to medicine, alchemy, music and philosophy. His work has been recorded in over 200 books and articles. Al Furabi was a cosmologist, logician and musician. Jabbir Ibn Hayyin was a cosmopolitan figure, being an astronomer, astrologer, engineer, geologist, physicist, pharmacist and a physician.

However despite this strong foundation, Muslims lost the tide. During the last 800 years there has been no major invention or innovation brought forward by the Muslim world. Western civilization is to be lauded for conceiving concepts like Quantum Mechanics, genetic engineering, theory of relativity and for creation of antibiotics, electricity, computers and a host of other modern gadgets that has made life comfortable today. Muslims on the other hand have had almost a negligible role to play in formulating such mind boggling ideas.

Zakariya al-Razi, Persian physician, scientist and philosopher. 865-925 ACE.

There has been some introspection to actually decipher the causes of the decline of intellectual vigor in the Muslim civilization. The scholars have come up with two different competing narratives. The conservatives declare the loss of faith and the debauchery, such as drinking and dancing in the Caliphs courts, as the causes for this downfall. Additionally they also lay blame on the invasion of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongol forces of Hulaku Khan whereby a treasure trove of documents and manuscripts related to astronomy, astrology, alchemy, history and on number of science subjects were destroyed.

However this is a faulty hypothesis. Science came into Islam through the spirit of tolerance and inquiry. After all that is the basis of any intellectual discipline. The early Muslim conquerors came upon the scholarly treasures of Greek and Roman civilizations. Those works were not discarded rather they were decoded and translated. Thus they became a source of considerable knowledge. It was not a divine duty but the natural human instinct of curiosity which made them acquire knowledge and wisdom from those sources. Hunan Ibn Ishaq translated Greek scientific and medical works into Arabic and Syriac during the prime of Abbasid caliphate. He was considered the most productive translator of Greek treatises of his time and became known as the “Sheikh of Translators” among the Arabs.

The reigns of Caliph Haroon ur Rasheed and Al Mammon are still remembered for their liberal outlook and research endeavors. These rulers were the noninterventionists of their time and belonged to the Mutizillah School of Thought. The Mutizillahs believed in rationalism, intellectual inquiry and reason. The application of logic and judgment to resolve theological conundrums was also one of their qualities. In their opposition was the Ashari School of Thought. The Asharis were firm believers inpredestination. They held the view that although humans possess freewill they have no power to create anything in the material world as that is the domain of God alone. The result was that there was a very bloody battle lasting over several years between predestinates and the freethinkers. In the end the Asharis succeeded. Therefore after the 14th century, and especially after Ibn Khuldun, there have been no big names among Muslim intellectuals. This is the misfortune of the Muslim civilization, one that it is yet to recover from.

Related posts:

1. A Plea for Rationality in the Face of Tragedy
2. Sabarimala – The Recurring Tragedy Caused by State-sponsored Superstition
3. The Myth of Islamic Ummah

Related posts:

1. The Case for Naturalistic Spirituality

Throughout the show, the audience were presented with a choice between two scenarios (one positive and one negative) for the man. The severity of the negative outcomes increased throughout the episode, and ranged from being mistakenly charged for an extra round of drinks, to being kidnapped by a ‘gang of thugs’.  The audience chose the scenario with a negative outcome each time, and for Brown, this was evidence of the moral depravity that inevitably follows anonymity in crowds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whilst we welcome Brown’s efforts to popularise social psychology in innovative and engaging ways, this particular episode was premised upon outdated theory that led to misleading and dangerous conclusions.  Before exploring these topics, it is worth briefly noting several methodological problems with the study. These include the fact that it was not actually an experiment (as claimed by the title) since no independent variable was manipulated (there was not a sample making equivalent decisions alone or without masks), the ‘bad’ choice was always presented to the audience second, the audience understood that the consequences of their actions weren’t ‘real’ (akin to an interactive episode of Beadle’s About!), and Brown – who offered the audience the choices – is renowned for his skill in influencing people’s decision-making processes. Whilst we take issue with these methodological confounds, the purpose of this piece is to question the psychological theory upon which the episode was based.

Brown stated during the episode and in a subsequent interview on his website that ‘deindividuation’ within crowds causes people to lose their identities and consequently behave in inevitably anti-social ways. Over thirty years of empirical work from the social identity tradition (for a review see Reicher, Spears, & Haslam, 2010) has discredited these claims. This research has shown that rather than a loss of identity within crowds, there is ashift from personal to social levels of identification. Instead of acting in terms of the norms and behavioural limits of one’s personal identity, within a psychological crowd one therefore acts in coherence with the norms of one’s salient collective identity. These norms will differ depending upon which social identity is salient at any given time, e.g. as a resident of a local community, supporter of a sports team, or as a member of an audience at a television recording. Crowd behaviour is therefore rooted in social context, such that individuals may even act more pro-socially in a crowd than they would do alone (see e.g. the non-violent resistance of Indian crowds in the face of colonial British rule, or within-crowd helping during emergencies [see Brown’s own blog on this topic]).

In the case of Friday’s ‘experiment’, the audience acted in terms of their collective identity as audience members in at least two ways. First, the very object of being in a game show audience is by definition to be entertained. Each time the audience were faced with a choice, they picked what was clearly the most entertaining option, and the selection that would prolong their involvement in the event. Second, the menacing masks that audience members wore were hardly neutral cues; in fact the very same masks were later worn by the ‘group of thugs’ who attempted the kidnap in the final scene. This is reminiscent of a famous study by Johnson and Downing (1979), who noted that when people were given robes resembling those of the Ku Klux Klan they displayed more anti-social behaviour than control participants. However, when participants were given nurses’ uniforms they displayed significantly less anti-social behaviour than controls. The fact that audience members wearing the ‘thug’ masks chose anti-social options is consistent with the argument that crowd behaviour is rooted in contextual cues, and not inherently anti-social.

It is important to emphasise that we are not arguing that crowds are immune from anti-social behaviour; some of the very worst atrocities in history have been committed by crowds (e.g. religious pogroms, lynchings etc.). The point is that crowd behaviour is neither intrinsically good nor bad, but is dependent upon the norms of the shared social identity of its members.

Why is all this important? Does it really matter to anyone other than social psychologists that outdated theory is portrayed as factual on prime-time television? The point is that an understanding of crowd psychology has important consequences for society. Regarding crowds as anti-social entities acting without identity or reason can legitimate their violent repression by security forces, prevent intragroup helping in emergencies, and facilitate the dismissal of popular protest as irrational by those in positions of power. Poor theory can therefore ultimately lead to both public disorder, and an attack upon our democratic rights as individuals to express our views collectively. It is therefore in all of our interests to gain an accurate understanding of crowd behaviour, rather than rely upon outdated theory that is not only wrong, but dangerous.

Fergus Neville (fgn@st-and.ac.uk)1 and David Novelli (dln21@sussex.ac.uk)2

1. University of St Andrews

2. University of Sussex

Related posts:

1. An Experiment With Satyagraha
2. Social Cognitive Bias, Privilege and Flaws in Moral Reasoning
3. Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe

Yoga in my nuclear family

Prema, my wife, has been doing Pranayama for 15 years and she finds it useful in relaxing and overcoming anxiety. That’s ok by me. But when Prema said she would like to take up yoga asanas as a stand-alone exercise I became slightly panicky.

Prema (P) : There is a lady in the Women’s club who teaches Yoga to a lot of women. I would like to join that class.

Myself ( M) : Don’t do that for heaven’s sake. Walking is more useful than tying yourself up into knots like a pretzel and making constipated faces.

P : No, I will do Yogasans in the mornings and Walking in the evenings.

M : It invariably rains in the evening in Mysore and then you will say like all the womenfolk around here that you have done yoga, so it wouldn’t matter if you skip walking….. A lot of nervous energy is expended in doing those asanas. So you might not be left with any energy or motivation to do walking in the evenings.

 P : But I am told that it is a complete exercise and that it prevents all diseases including cancer !

M : Since it was invented 5000 years ago in India, most of the gullible Indians have a conviction that old is gold and their sheer patriotism and loyalty to their ancestors like Patanjali makes then feel that it is a panacea.  Arousing the Kundalini shakthi  and the various chakras are all Bullsh * t.  Moreover Yoga asanas done as a stand-alone exercise can be dangerous too.

P :  How is that ?

M :  When  we engage in any activity like lifting, pushing, punching, squeezing, dancing or moving like in walking or jogging, we contract our muscles. Say a muscle fibre is 5″ long ( It is much more long in the quadriceps, hamstrings or trapezius) . When we do exercise it contracts to, say 4.8″. When in the cooling down phase we do stretching, the muscle fibre comes back to 5″, the optimal size which keeps it healthy, elastic and live. So if we use Yoga for stretching just after aerobic walking or jogging or swimming or biking, it is ok. But remember that Yoga is not the only way to do this. There are Greek calisthenics, Tai chi chuan, and the stretching exercises taught by physiotherapists and sports medicine doctors, which is much more scientific than Yoga.

P : Why can’t Yoga be used as a stand-alone exercise ?

M : Let us again take the hypothetical example of the muscle fibre which is 5″ long. You have not done any aerobics. So it stays at 5”.  If now you engage in asanas, the fibre will elongate to 5.2″. Over a period of time, continued performance of stand-alone Yogasans will stretch the muscle fibre to  5.3″ or even 5.4″. There might be micro-tears in the fibre and the fibre loses its elasticity.  It is now unhealthy. It cannot perform tasks with the same efficiency, since the fibre cannot regain the healthy 5″ length. You will have less strength, less endurance though you will have the flexibility of an octopus.

Yoga delusion in action at Rishikesh. Source, wikimedia commons.

P : What about their claim that it can cure all diseases ?

M : Diseases can be prevented and even cured only through Cardio-vascular aerobic exercises like Jogging, Brisk Walking, swimming or biking and strength building exercises. This has been adequately proved in medical journals.

Benefits of Aerobic Exercises

It improves the cardiac function and our VO2 max lung capacity by decreasing LDL cholesterol and Increasing HDL cholesterol,  by increasing Insulin-sensitivity. Remember that Type 2 adult onset diabetes is caused by Insulin-resistance and not by Insulin-deficiency. It also decreases our Blood pressure and body fat. But most importantly, aerobic exercise builds collateral circulation in our coronary arteries. Even if your main arteries are blocked 40 to 50%, you can still survive because aerobic exercise builds natural bypass capillaries to nourish the heart muscle beyond the narrowed artery.

Benefits of Strengthening Exercises

When we improve the tone & strength of our upper body muscles, we automatically raise our BMR (Basal metabolic rate). This is because body fat in the sub-cutaneous adipose tissues or in the visceral region (Omentum fat) is a dead tissue whereas muscle is a live tissue with arteries, capillaries, veins in it and so even when you are idle you will be expending calories. So an increased BMR helps us to reduce our body fat even when we are sitting or sleeping.

When we exercise, the muscles contract, they pull the joints via the tendons. When the bones are under tensile stress like this, they react to that by creating more bone cells. This increases the BMD (bone mineral density) which strengthens the bones and prevents Osteoporosis and fractures on falling or injury.

In Yoga asanas, the cardio-vascular benefit is only about 10 % and strength building effect is only 10 % ( Unless you can do all those Herculean asanas which Baba Ramdev does on TV shows, in his camps, which only he can do, the megalomaniac exhibitionist that he is ! ) and the Stretching effect is 80%.  So while Yoga may benefit some sedentary females to some extent, since any activity is better than sleeping, it is hardly an ideal exercise and is dangerous as a stand-alone.

P : What about Pranayama ?

M : It is good in principle. It increases the VO2 max in our lungs, i.e., it maximises the oxygen uptake in our lungs. More of the haemoglobin molecules attached to our RBCs will be oxygenated. But the sad thing is, unless there is a rapid movement of the blood through our blood pipes, which are 1600 kms long ( arteries, arterioles, capillaries, veins & venules), this oxygenated blood cannot reach all the trillions of cells in our bodies. So pranayama by itself cannot give us a lot of benefit. Whereas if you do Jogging, brisk walking, swimming or biking you increase your blood pressure, heart rate and breathing rate and the oxygenated blood reaches most of the trillion cells in our body.

P :  When is Pranayama useful ?

M :  When you are anxious like when you are about to face an exam or interview or you are about to give a public lecture on a topic and you are not thoroughly prepared for clarifying the doubts of the audience, then perhaps a bit of Pranayama or doing other kinds of deep abdominal breathing might help to calm you down.

P : Are you saying that Yoga asanas & Pranayama are unscientific ?

M : Yes, unless you start at the age of 8-10 years. Then the muscles, tendons, ligaments and the spine become flexible and continued practice of Yoga thereafter can maintain this mobility of the joints and flexibility of the spine & muscles. But people take up Yoga at the age of 50 + when they suffer from Osteo-arthritis, Rheumatoid-arthritis, Lumbago, Bursitis or Spondylosis .

In such cases it may make people slightly more mobile after taking up Yoga than before, since any activity is better than no activity. But the Pranayama & Meditation aspects of Hata Yoga do give you stress relief and relaxes you. 

However for youngsters, some of the Hata-Yoga asanas are iatrogenic, causing problems more than building health. When you sit down on the floor with one leg folded, the other stretched forward with knee locked and you try to touch your toes, you sprain your soas muscles in your lower back. This is unscientific. The knee should never be locked. There are many such useless postures in Yoga.

P : Then how come Americans, English and the Europeans have taken up Yoga for physical fitness ? Are they all morons ?

M : Mostly because of Evangelical Yoga teachers, the thrill of learning something exotic, because it is the in-thing or fashionable thing to do and it is being recommended by people in limelight like Hollywood actors. And these Yoga teachers are smiling. Smiling all the way to their bank accounts.

Yog Asans encapsulated

Yog asans or other forms of stretching are comparatively useless as warm ups or stand-alones, but somewhat okay as cool downs. The rest is all hype.

Related posts:

1. Press Release: Opposing Compulsory Yoga in Schools
2. Eyewitness report of the Psychic Yoga Challenge
3. Do We Need Yoga?
4. Psychic Yoga Challenge: Yogi Ashwini Vs. Rationalists
5. The God Delusion in Action: My Indian travelogue.
6. A Scientific View of the God Delusion and it’s Implications

Why do people have faith in the supernatural ?

It is a simple truth that the vast majority of the world believes in divinity and all its associated precepts (i.e. an afterlife, a soul, heaven, hell, karma, reincarnation, fate etc.).

There are any number of reasons for this.

Protection : As a student of psychology and a secular humanist, I believe it lies in stress reduction. That is to say, to believe in an omnipotent agency watching over you helps ease the worries of everyday life. One must simply have faith in their particular divinity, hold on to its predefined ethical code, and it will protect and aid you. There can be no doubt that this is an enticing proposition.

Immortality : Naturally, however, the appeal doesn’t stop there. What if, by holding on to religion, you never had to die? Therein we discover the other great lure of religion, namely, a belief in the afterlife. After all, everything is within the power of a being that is omnipotent. When one dies, one’s spirit merely ascends to the higher plane on which God dwells, to live there for all eternity in complete bliss.

Justice : Therefore, a religious person has the patronage of his or her divine agency, which affords both daily protection and spiritual immortality. As the commercials say, “But wait! There’s more!”. What if, by joining a religion, all of the people you have ever hated get tortured for all eternity? That sadistic boss, the robber who vandalized your house and took away all the black-money you had stashed away, even the man who tried to tell you that your religion was bullshit and everyone who’s ever wronged or hurt you, gets to burn for ever once they die.

Now, who can beat that triad ? Protection, Immortality, and Justice to boot.

But there is a price to pay.

Why is Optimal health important to us ?

Health is defined by the World Health Organization as a state of complete physical, mental & social well-being and not the mere absence of disease or infirmity. Some people are inclined to say, “I virtually never get colds, coughs or fever, so I am quite fit and healthy”. But this cannot be deemed as optimal health. A man is of optimum health if he/she works with gusto & supererogatory zeal for 8 hours in a day in a bank, office, factory, shop, mall, school or college and then when he returns home, he has enough energy to take his family for an outing (Restaurant, Cinema or Rock concert or Symphony) or at least should be able to play indoor games with his kids.

For attaining this kind of health, a certain amount of knowledge of Preventive Medicine is essential. Preventive Medicine however comprises three distinct phases : Primary, Secondary & Tertiary.

Primary prevention is preventing diseases through appropriate nutrition & dietetics, exercise regimens & stress control. Secondary prevention is when we get some symptoms of pain, fever, bleeding or lumps and we visit a clinic, the doctor puts us through lab tests, X-rays, ECG to narrow down the diagnosis. Here what is prevented is not the disease, since the disease is already there but what is prevented is the progression & aggravation of the disease.Tertiary prevention is the stage of drugs & surgery when we have a full blown disease and we seek the help of doctors. Here what is prevented is morbidity & mortality and the complications of diseases.

Faith & the Sub-Optimization of Health

Religious fanatics neglect to take appropriate actions in all the three phases of Preventive medicine, and hence for them optimum health, more often than not, is elusive and slippery.

In Primary Prevention : They have a laid-back approach to life and are primarily lazy, indolent and averse to exertion. This laziness is derived from a largely sub-conscious illusion of invulnerability and a partly conscious sense of self-complacency & security that “a sky dad or mom is watching over them and will prevent all serious illnesses”. So they are not willing to personally invest the necessary effort to prevent illness by first learning about Primary prevention and then translating it into practice by actually exercising, by planning their food intake, avoiding fatty foods and exercising portion control. They are always giving examples of centenarians who smoked 2 packets a day, drank alcohol, ate fried stuff and never did any exercise other than walking to the toilet several times in a day, to rationalize & gloss over their own aversion to a self-disciplined dietary & exercise regimen.

In Secondary Prevention : For the deeply religious, everything is pre-ordained by God(s). What is fore-ordained is bound to happen and nothing we do, can forestall it. So they say : no point in frequent check-ups and lab tests. Perhaps some of the symptoms like fever and pain are caused by the deities to test their faith. They will say, “Do you claim that microbes and antigens like viruses, bacteria, parasites & toxins cause all this morbidity ? Well perhaps the divine beings are working through these agents to remind me of my laxity in my piety. So I must retain my faith in the supernatural and regain my religious fervour”. However they think whatever happens is for the best in the long run, though it may appear not so beneficial to them right now. That is because of their implicit assumption that the sky-daddy will not forsake them for ever, though he may be inattentive to their needs at the moment, because of other preoccupations. That is why acccording to them, we must pray to give him a gentle reminder.

Also belief in Immortality leads some religious people to disregard present health. Immortality means immortality of the soul, the shedding of the outer garment or physical body at death. The body can be destroyed but the soul is immortal and indestructible (Bhagawat Gita). Such a religious belief could lead individuals to ignore their bodies or lead to extreme ascetic practices.

An early 20th century painting of religious quackery from Azerbaijan.

In Tertiary Prevention : Religious people visit temples for many reasons, primarily :

- to assuage their guilt in amassing wealth through illegal/immoral methods or committing some crime and cleverly evading capture by the police – by seeking divine forgiveness,

- to ensure a comfortable lower berth, metaphorically speaking, in Heaven ( and avoid the uneven lower side berth in 2 AC as it were) in the Afterlife,

- for keeping Mannat (Hindi) or Harake (Kannada) – for favours received already, lest He/She gets angry at our ingratitude and refuses to do us favours in future,

- to ensure success in exams, interviews, elections or entry into reality shows like the KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepathi),

- to request the Lord to cure serious illnesses in themselves or their family members,

- and then some ……….

So one of the important reasons for those visits to Thirumalai or Sabarimalai or Vaishnov Devi or Amarnath cave or Shirdi Niwas is to ensure their own good health or the good health of their loved ones. The rich load the Hundis with their black money, the poor tonsure their heads or break a specified number of coconuts, but does this have any effect on the health of the petitioner or the health of his loved ones ?

It’s anybody’s guess.

This is the time when the religious people who wish to play it safe, resort to anecdote-based ‘Alternative medicine’ and not evidence-based modern medicine, as an additional safety measure to cure their ailments.

Being religious means being okay with believing in things without evidence ( Soul, Afterlife, God(s), Heaven, Hell, Reincarnation, Maya, Karma) and with the same mind-set, believing in pseudo-sciences like : Astrology, Reiki, Vastu shastra, Ayurveda, Homeopathy and the 1001 other delusions of our ancestors. After all ‘Faith’ (in God or in Alternative medicine) is belief in something not only without evidence but despite evidence to the contrary.

If these people get cured by the Alternative systems of medicine, even though it might be because of a “Placebo Effect” or because of “Self-Limiting Diseases”, their faith in these systems gets reinforced. Failing to obtain a cure here, they reluctantly go to the practitioners of modern conventional medicine. By this time it might be too late even here to cure the disease. They might die and the family members say that God(s) recalled him/her early because the person was a favourite of the God(s). What nonsense. To begin with, all human lives are transient & fleeting enough as they are but they are made even more brief through their religious dogmatic beliefs. That is the tragedy.

So I say : Religious people will find it more difficult, if not impossible, to be healthy compared to the prudent folks who practice Preventive Medicine. Unless of course they follow the advice of Oliver Cromwell :

“Pray to God and keep your gunpowder dry”.

My parents practiced this pragmatic philosophy. I would say that they were quite progressive-minded for their times. They followed the advice of modern medical specialists while simultaneously dispatching a prayer to the sky-daddy in tandem – as a backup prop and contingency plan. If the treatment succeeded, it was primarily because of the grace of the sky-daddy and if it failed it was because of the limitations of modern medical science. A simple, naive faith indeed but it kept them happy. If happiness is the end-goal for all of us, who is complaining ?

Also, it helped them to remain healthy for most of their lives, as they followed the advice of medical specialists!

Possible Strategies to preclude this Sub-Optimization

The whole point of a non-theistic approach to life ( Whether we call it positive atheism, Scientific naturalism or secular humanism), is discovering that mankind is all alone and must seek meaning and happiness on earth (not in an after-life), for itself, by itself. The modern intellectual realises that he is responsible in a large measure, for his own destiny. Living on a minor planet on the edge of a small galaxy in an infinitely vast universe ( It is estimated that there are more than 100 billion galaxies like our milky way galaxy, each with 100 billion stars and millions of planets), man has come to see that he cannot look outside himself for salvation.

This realization is a privileged one and not meant for the faint-hearted who have a compulsive need to suck on the pacifier of blind faith.

So the person liberated from these illusions of faith has to create meaning and happiness for himself in his own life. This life is all that we have. Whereas the deeply religious are solely obsessed with ensuring a secure & happy life after death for the soul, the secular humanists are only concerned with life before death and how to create meaning & happiness while living inside their physical bodies. For the latter, the physical body is paramount, i.e., more important than anything else. And for ensuring our happiness on this planet, it is imperative that we focus on Preventive Medicine and in particular on what our interventions ought to be for optimum bodily health.

This is because sickness and happiness, needless to say, are mutually exclusive entities.

The ten commandments for self-care of our health are :

1. Don’t use tobacco or drugs at all.
2. Don’t drink alcohol but if you are habituated to it, do not consume more than 2 ounces per day.
3. Eat a diet low in saturated fat, transfats, cholesterol and salt and consume complex carbohydrates of whole grains with a Low Glycemic index but eat a diet high in soluble and insoluble fiber, fruits, vegetables and fish (if you are a non-vegetarian). Use Olive oil or Canola oil for deep frying if necessary. Eat one walnut everyday for the essential omega 3 fatty acids for brain & nerve health.
4. Stay lean. Do not develop a paunch or if you do develop a pot belly, take drastic action through a diet to reduce.
5. Take a multivitamin & mineral supplement daily as also an antioxidant comprising Vitamins A,C & E and minerals Zinc & Selenium, to protect yourself from all the pollution caused free radicals.
6. Exercise regularly for 40 to 60 minutes each day. After 25, Wogging is best : 10 mts. of Jogging followed by 20 mts. of brisk walking, then a repeat of 10 mts. of Jogging and 20 mts. of brisk walking. If you have pain in your knees or you are beyond 40, choose a low impact exercise like brisk walking, biking or swimming.
7. Avoid excessive stress. Try offsetting the stress by listening to soft music, do some meditation or play with children.
8. Minimise your exposure to radiation ( X-rays, mammograms, CT scans or angiograms) which could mutate your DNA and cause cancer. Insist on MRI or Ultrasonics if that option is available.
9. Protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases, by confining your intimacy to your spouse.
10. Obtain immunizations, screening tests, lab tests and get yourself clinically examined periodically because certain diseases are “Asymptomatic” viz., Hypertension, Osteoporosis and Silent Ischemia among several others.

It is too risky & puerile to completely rely on unseen supernatural forces to come to our aid. The locus of control of our health ought to be internal and coming from within ourselves and we can certainly do a lot to prevent morbidity & suffering in our lives by practicing preventive medicine.

Related posts:

1. Flowering Faith
2. Blind Faith: A Poem by Nalini Hebbar

A Muttah marriage is conducted in absence of any witnesses. Allah and the Koran are considered as witnesses. Muttah also has a predetermined date of expiry. In Misyar, presence of two adult male witnesses is mandatory. However it does not carry a preset date of termination.

In Misyar, both husband and the wife retain their homes and arrange for visits for a certain number of nights. The husband gives up his right to unlimited sexual access. The wife predictably relinquishes a lot more, including her right to maintenance money, housing as well as equal attention by the husband (in case of polygamy.) Moreover the custody of children born out of such a union goes to the husband or his family after age seven. The Muslim marriage is already skewed heavily in favor of men. However a provisional arrangement such as Misyar completely destroys the fundamentals of a family life whereby a husband completely relieves himself of family responsibilities.

The proponents of Misyar argue that such an understanding can meet the needs of young people with limited resources to afford a separate home, of spinsters, widows and widowers. It also fits the needs of a conservative Islamic society wherein people can be sentenced by law for fornication and other sexual deviances. However,the irony of this argument is that instead of creating viable economic opportunities; a lower form of marriage has been invented. This system fails to address the inherent gender inequalities in which widows and divorcees are relegated to a lower form and the only option for them to have male companionship is through abandoning their rights. The sociological effects on the women who are treated as unworthy individuals also remain unanswered.

Further support for such a marriage is derived from its legal angle. Islamic scholars argue that this marriage needs to be assessed on the grounds that it is actually a contract in which rights and obligations of both the parties have been explicitly laid down and hence known and agreed by all. The basis of the legal argument is that such a contract automatically becomes valid and binding since the terms are clear, consented to by both the parties and within the boundaries laid down by the religion.

Image source: http://waeshael.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/wifes.jpg/sikedish

However this sort of reasoning makes no mention of the completely unequal bargaining powers of the two parties and the fact that the woman has almost no power to insist on the conditions specified in such a contract. The fact that a women agrees to a marriage which provides her with almost no rights compared to what she would be entitled to otherwise, is clear evidence of her lower bargaining position. By evaluating such a contract entirely as a legal document to which the two parties have consented is to completely ignore the inherent gender inequalities which actually led to the creation of such a legal instrument.

Moreover, the societal consequences for children born out of such a union can be utterly devastating. A home from which a father is absent for no apparent reason can have a deep psychological impact on young impressionable minds. The situation for the woman can become worse if the wife is abandoned or renounced by her Misyar husband. This can also result in her having to raise kids as a single mother with hardly any means of subsistence. Additionally, since a Misyar marriage does not have an expiry date, the woman cannot marry another man unless she is divorced by her Misyar husband.

There are other reasons that force women to cave into such destructive choices. In 2008, Saudi Arabia had around 200,000 women who received no support from their blood relatives. The requirement of the Saudi government for these women to produce Mehrams who would provide them with permission to work or travel often compel them to enter into Misyar marriages for the only purpose of earning a livelihood or gaining permission for travel.

Although legal loopholes have been developed to justify the act of temporary marriages, these marriages are no better than a legalized form of prostitution.  The victim in every case turns out to be a woman with little or no say. Such arrangements should be discouraged and steps need to be taken to completely eradicate this menace.

Related posts:

1. My ‘Arranged Court Marriage’
2. How intolerant is Islam?
3. A Secular (“Priest-less”) Marriage Ceremony At Shimoga, Followed By A Rationalists’ Meet!
4. Rationalists Rescue 12 Year Old Girl From Forced Marriage In Bankura, India
5. Nirmukta Advisory Board and National Coordinator Appointed On Temporary Basis

“Scientifically, their magic is explained through the phenomenon of “entrainment”. This occurs when “the powerful rhythmic vibrations of one object, when projected upon a second object with similar frequencies, will cause the object to begin to vibrate in resonance with the first object.” If you believe that we carry in our bodies every trauma, every negative idea or emotion, then in energetic terms, we become “out of tune” with who we are. Each of us is meant to vibrate in harmony with our true essence.”

Tenzin Rinponche, a Tibetan mystic who has written books on various forms of ancient Tibetan “healing” techniques, is the author of Tibetan Sound Healing which helps practitioners “learn to clear obstacles on the level of the body, the energetic and emotional dimensions of being, and the spiritual consciousness”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When the subject was discussed a couple of years ago on the Nirmukta Facebook group, the conversation focused mostly on the hilarity of the claims. What I didn’t know back then was how common this notion of “Sound Healing” is in different cultures, both ancient as well as modern.

What is Sound Healing?

As the name indicates, Sound Healing refers to a category of practices in which sound waves from different sources are used to allegedly heal people with various ailments, mental and physical. After my initial exposure to the Tibetan form of Sound Healing, I discovered how widespread belief in Sound Healing really is. The specific claims of the many forms of this pseudoscience vary; some forms claim to use sound vibrations to cure everything from stress to cancer, while others claim that each illness has its own frequency, and that you can have a “conversation” with the frequency of your illness using “healing frequencies”.

So as it turns out, Sound Healing is a form of quackery with the potential to be extremely dangerous (cancer cure, really?) if certain people take it seriously enough, but has somehow not received the attention it deserves from the skeptics community. One of my favorite go-to websites for a skeptical take on such pseudoscience, skepdic.org, doesn’t even have Sound Healing listed. Searching for “Sound Healing” along with the term “skeptic”, the first page of hits on google is filled with “testimonials” from people who were supposedly skeptical before becoming utterly convinced in the efficacy of Sound Healing “therapy”. So not only is there a lot of propaganda on the subject, this entire bucket of woo seems to have practically passed unnoticed under the radar of the skeptical movement!

The top prize for Sound Healing woo goes to a 38 foot high dome in the Mojave desert called the Intergratron, allegedly built “based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials”. This website has to be seen to be believed, do check it out. The main attraction at this center of mystical nonsense is a “Sound Bath“, which the website describes as follows:

“The Sound Bath is a 30-minute sonic healing session that you can experience while resting comfortably in the Integratron’s highly resonant, multi-wave sound chamber. We play a series of quartz crystal singing bowls live, each one keyed to the energy centers or chakras of the body, where sound is nutrition for the nervous system.  Imagine lying on comfy mats in the center of this relaxing and resonant high-energy field, while having your body bathed in exquisite sound for 30 minutes. The results are waves of peace, heightened awareness, and relaxation of the mind and body.”

Integratron

Image Source

Does it Work?

Like most pseudoscientific ideas, claims about Sound Healing are extrapolated from elementary scientific facts. A common claim is that “vibrations” are involved in healing. Sound comprises of oscillating vibrations of a certain frequency range that are transferred from a source object by a conducting medium (usually air) to the ear drums. But that’s where the science ends and the pseudoscience begins. There is no scientific evidence that sound vibrations can have curative physiological effects on clinical conditions caused by infections or systemic failure. It is likely that certain forms of sound- soothing music, for example, can lower stress. After all, music can affect our emotional state, with limited psychological changes, a fact that is capitalized on in the burgeoning field of music therapy. But much of the claims in this area are highly exaggerated, without any scientific evidence. There are websites that claim to treat various medical conditions, offering packages that are specific for the heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, muscles, intestines and even for blood pressure!

If you truly want to have your mind boggled with pseudoscientific jargon, “Vibrational Healer” Don Estes is your man. An expert in “vibration science” and author of books on the same subject, Estes is an influential figure in the Sound Healing community. Here is a description about him:

“Don Estes is a professionally trained neuroscientist who has lectured worldwide on sensory science and vibrational medicine. He is founding CEO of InnerSense Inc., and inventor of VibraSound, Sensory Resonance and other transformational technologies which have been featured on CNN, ABC, NBC, ET, Beyond 2000, Next Step, Science Frontiers, and many other media. In 1999 he published Harmonic Law: The Science of Vibration, an encyclopedia of vibrational science, which define the principles of harmonic law. In addition, the book’s master illustration, the Absolute Scale of Relative Cosmic Reality, a large wall chart that illustrates an expanded relative vibrational spectrum from gravity to the quantum. It reveals how absolute values hold the relative scale frequencies together by resolving the difference between the actual and potential components of any reality. It also lays out the progressive evolution of manifested reality and details the microstructure of music, light and sound.”

Estes’ company, Innersense, is evidence that memes such as “vibration” and “resonance” are powerful marketing ploys to sell pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

Another strategy used in selling the idea that sound can heal is pointing out that certain undesirable sounds, especially urban and industrial noise, can have negative consequences for mental health. This TED talk is an example. Debate on such subjects often goes in depth into technical aspects of sound technology, but are conspicuously lacking when it comes to scientific evidence for the core claims.

The bottom line is that in order for freethinkers to take claims of Sound Healing seriously, blinded and replicable studies with large sample sizes must be presented in established peer-reviewed journals. As is usual with most pseudosciences, when such standard scientific requirements are proposed, the proponents of these practices resort to special pleading, such as seen in this blog post by the speaker in the above TED video:

“An approach which dismisses any idea or hypothesis because it’s not ‘scientific’ is itself anti-scientific!”
“In a wider context, the stance that assertions are acceptable only if backed by evidence also denies some of the more interesting areas of human thought…”
“Any comprehensive study of sound and music … must involve considering many theses and ideas that are untestable, or at least currently untested.”

Sound Healing and Organized Religion:

We have established that Sound Healing is a mystical New Age-y concept that is expressed in many different cultural traditions, in many different forms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea of healing with sound is also found in the major religious faiths. There are, of course, limitations placed by the core religious beliefs on the appropriation of this pseudoscience by these religions.

Islam: In Islam, the recitation of Koranic texts is often claimed to have healing powers. There are multiple websites making all sorts of claims involving how Koranic recitation is beneficial. Here are a couple of examples:

http://www.kaheel7.com/eng/index.php/secrets-of-quran-a-sunnah/238-healing-by-listening-to-quran

http://www.islamawareness.net/Music/healing.html

Recently I came across a hilarious attempt to rationalize superstitious belief in the power of Koranic recitation. This article mentions an experiment done by Al-Huda institute in Canada and replicated by the Reflections school in Karachi. The experiments supposedly establish that the half of an apple exposed to Koranic recitation does not rot, while the half that isn’t does. The article doesn’t link to the methodology of the study, but even ignoring requirements such as sample size and blinding, the experiment should be easy to replicate. And if replicated, such a startling and powerful effect should be easy to have published in a reputed peer-reviewed journal.

Christianity: Sound Healing doesn’t seem to be as common in Christianity as in Islam. But nevertheless, there are a number of websites peddling Christian Sound Healing. Predictably, Biblical readings feature prominently in this form of religious superstition. Some of these claims involve Biblical “divine frequencies”. Jonathan Goodman, director of the Sound Healers Association and author of THE DIVINE NAME: The Sound That Can Change the World, claims on his site that certain chants can help one “resonate with the Christ energy”. Leonard Horowitz and Joseph Puleo, authors of Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse, according to this website claim that “The new bible codes, found in the Book of Numbers, include a mathematical electromagnetic frequency code for “miracles” that experts say has already been shown to help repair damaged DNA, the genetic blueprint of life.” The article goes on to say:

“These original sound frequencies were apparently used in the great hymn to St. John the Baptist that, along with many Gregorian chants, were lost centuries ago according to church officials.”

How anyone could have known anything about sound frequencies at the time attributed to the character of John the Baptist, is a puzzling detail not likely to stop these people with a fertile imagination.

Here is more information about the “recently discovered” Bible codes.

Jill Mattson is an artist who promotes Sound Healing, and in her album Paint Your Soul she claims to have used elements from “numerical patterns of sound frequencies encoded in the Bible (Numbers 7:12-83)”.

Hinduism: In the Hindu tradition, Sound Healing is nothing new. To begin with, there is the syllable ‘om’ or ‘aum’.

“Uttering the monosyllable “aum”, the eternal world of Brahman, one who departs leaving the body (at death), he attains the supreme goal” ~ Bhagavad Gita

There is so much woo about the “om” on the internet that I could spend the rest of my life documenting the BS claims. Here are some highlights. There’s a Om-Healing website featuring some truly masterful pseudoscience, a whole series of “Om Frequency” tuning forks and singing bowls, music albums dedicated to Om Healing and even a magazine dedicated to the OM, which often features articles on Om Healing. Then there is this video, a parody of itself:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The traditional Hindu ‘om’ has seeped into mainstream New Age culture through the popularity of yoga and meditation. But the ‘om’ is just the beginning of Sound Healing superstition in Hinduism. Since it is an amalgamation of various primitive animistic beliefs, religious chants are a mainstay of Hinduism. Mantras, the prayer chants that are alleged to have powerful supernatural effects, are central to Hindu practice. Again, the internet is filled with pseudoscientific claims about the healing powers of the mantras.

Addressing the Problem

Here are a few ideas as a starting point to addressing the problem.

1. Conducting scientific studies for publication in legitimate peer-reviewed journals. Where real science is concerned, a negative result can be as valuable as a positive one. On a smaller scale, even a simple home experiment debunking the apple hoax perpetuated by the Al Huda institute can make a difference.
2. Online discussions about the prevalence of this pseudoscience and its potential dangers to society. Sound Healing is a subject that we skeptics hardly ever talk about on our social networks, perhaps because of the apparent futility in addressing it in the Indian context, but certainly because there isn’t much literature on it in the skeptical community. This needs to change.
3. Raising awareness in daily life. This is particularly important in India, where a large segment of the population engages in one form of this practice or the other. Most of it may be in some benign form, but we all probably have friends and/or family that engage in this practice.
4. Organizing large events and demonstrations. Trained activists like Professor Narendra Nayak of FIRA can help us design challenges to proponents of Sound Healing.

Related posts:

1. Eye Donation Camp, Organized by the Mumbai Freethinkers
2. Report On ‘Yukti 2011′- Organized By Nirmukta’s Bangalore Freethinkers
3. Religion in Music: Replacing God with Nature
4. Sex, Lies and Religion
5. A Rational Approach to the Problem of Obsessive Compulsive Religion
6. Terrorism & Religion

This letter was written 10 years ago, addressed to the Vice Chancellor of Mangalore University, as a reaction to the inclusion of Astrology in the curriculum.

Mangalore
9.7.2001

The Vice Chancellor, Mangalore University, Konaje

Dear sir,

Pranam, I do hope that you will excuse my writing this letter in English. It should have been in Sanskrit, but, since I have no working knowledge of the language, I am forced to communicate with you in English, a pardesi language. However, I am overjoyed to learn that you have decided to grant Certificates in astrology and vedic sciences from your university to students of certain maths, and I wish to express the same in this letter to you.

I am writing this letter to your during rahu kalam on the chauthi of ashada masa. I also know that I should have enclosed a copy of my horoscope. Unfortunately, I do not have one. However, I am informing you that I was born, due to circumstances entirely beyond my control, on the 5th of February, 1951 at 4.30 a.m. You may kindly have my horoscope cast by the experts of your university, before replying.

In the meantime let me bring to your kind attention the past reputation of your university in predicting future events. There are many such instances, but one in my personal knowledge would suffice. In May of 1989, when I was a member of the academic council of your university, I was unceremoniously ejected from that body, directing that I cease being a teacher! This event took place 5 days before the communication to that effect reached me from the management of the Kasturba Medical College, where I had been employed as assistant professor! It is not surprising that a university with such talents in the administration start a course in astrology.

Though you claim to be a physicist, you have shown extraordinary talents in other fields. I do recall that once you were supposed to present a paper on rebirth. You have conducted poojas for the success of the programs in the university and have visited god men on these matters. While we can understand the state of mind you must be in, since you have a few months left for retirement, it is tragic that you have decided to thrust your personal superstitions on an authority of higher learning like a university.

It would be fitting that you introduce the following new courses from the next academic year onwards:

1. B.Sc. degree in soothsaying: Syllabus for this could be inclusive of predicting future using cards picked up by parrots, astrology, planchet, spirit possession etc. We have a number of authorities in this field who can be seen in hotels, roadside and maidans. You could effectively use them to set the syllabi and as master resource persons to train the teachers.
2. B.A.Degree in superstition: You could include local as well as foreign superstitions in the syllabus. Things like firewalking, materializing objects from thin air etc. could be included. We have many experts in these areas here. For “sciences” like faith healing, crystal gazing, signs of the Zodiac etc. you could invite outsiders.
3. Ph.D in child marriage: Here researchers could go into the advantages of child marriages, their methodologies and devise ways by which these could place at the newborn or in the foetal stage itself.
4. Ph.D. in widow management: Here new methods of managing widows could be tried out e.g. more efficient means of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their late husbands, better means of shaving their heads and keeping them inside houses, .new methods for usurping their properties etc. could be studied in detail.

When these new courses are to be introduced, the means for admission and examinations are also to be changed as per the new norms. I have suggestions for the same that I hope you will be kind enough to accept.

1. Entrances to courses based on caste:

Vaishyas only could be admitted for commerce courses, Brahmins for ‘sciences’ like astrology etc. As for Shudras, Daliths and non Hindus they not be allowed any education at all, as it would wean them away from their traditional designated roles in the caste system. Women should be specifically debarred from any education as their primary role is child bearing and taking care of their families.

At the time of admission all candidates should be asked for a recommendation letter from the priest of their temple or the Swamiji of the local math. To determine the suitability of the candidates, they should submit a copy of their horoscopes which will be examined by an admission panel consisting of eminent astrologers. The palms of the candidates could be read by a palmist at the time of the interview.

2. Examination Reforms:

Examinations should be conducted on auspicious dates only. Things like rahu kalam, yamaganda kalam should be taken into consideration when deciding the examination dates. If a candidate fails, the horoscope should be examined by a panel of experts who will suggest suitable rituals to propitiate the planets, gods, spirits etc.

However, these are purely temporary measures. Once the panel develops expertise, the degree could be awarded right at the time of admission itself after checking the horoscopes of the candidates since everything an individual does is predetermined at the time of birth.

Finally, we are very sad to know that your tenure as the VC of this university is coming to an end in a few months from now. However, since this has been preordained by planetary configurations at the time of your birth it cannot be helped. Our only request is that to continue this noble task that you have initiated, please kindly suggest to the appointing authorities that your successor may be chosen from a panel of astrologers, palmists and swamijis whose horoscopes con be scanned and the most suitable one appointed.

With best wishes from an aquarian.

Yours sincerely

(Narendra Nayak)

Mangalore University

Related posts:

1. Astrology Flops Again: Follow up to the Astrology Challenge
2. An Open letter to Sri Sri H.H.Ashwiniji Maharaj
3. Rationalist Club Of Periyar Maniammai University
4. Second Rationalist Programme at Periyar Maniammai University, Vallam, Tamil Nadu.
5. Pseudoscience In The Stars: An Indian Rationalist’s Experiences with Astrology
6. Will Astrologer Bhaskar Shetty Keep His Word And Take Up The Rationalists’ Astrology Challenge?