Generally, a temple should be located a place where earth’s magnetic wave path passes through densely.

Is there such a place? “Magnetic wave passing through densely” – just because this sentence sounds “science-y” doesn’t make it pertinent. And what exactly is a “magnetic wave”???

A Hindu temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo by Soman (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Now, these temples are located strategically at a place where the positive energy is abundantly available from the magnetic and electric wave distributions of north/south pole thrust.

Positive Energy? Let’s try to understand what is meant by this weasel word “Energy”. Borrowing Brian Dunnings’ words:

“Do you ever hear people talking about energy fields? What does that mean?

“Especially when the subject of New Age alternative medicine comes up, you’ll often hear people refer to energy fields. Life energy, spiritual energy, the body’s energy fields. That sure sounds pretty cool; is it actually a real thing that we can detect and use somehow? To answer that we have to start by understanding what energy really is. In short, energy is a measurement of something’s ability to do work. It’s measured in joules, after the 19th century physicist James Joule. Think of Einstein’s equation E = mc2. Energy is a function of mass. How much mass you can move a certain distance, is exactly how much energy you have.

“The electrical energy in this battery contains enough joules of work to move an electric train a certain distance. If I raise this weight, I input enough joules of potential kinetic energy to break six bones in my foot. That’s basically what ‘energy’ is. But that doesn’t seem to match very well with how we hear the word ‘energy’ being used. We’re told there are energy fields, that enlightened people can tap into and draw strength from. Like a glowing, hovering cloud of power, how you might envision a highly evolved creature from the original Star Trek series. That’s kind of what it sounds like an energy field is. New Age concepts like reiki or feng shui are entirely built upon the presumed existence of such fields.

“But the scientific definition of energy seems inadequate to explain these. Why is that? It’s because the word ‘energy’ has been hijacked for its scientific-sounding value. Real energy fields, like the electromagnetic field surrounding a magnet, the heat radiating from a warm body, or the gravitational field around a planet, have definite properties — and their strength, and thus their energy, can be precisely measured. On the other hand, New Age energy fields, like your bodies supposed ‘life energy’, have no describable properties, cannot be detected, and do no measurable work. We can’t say they don’t exist, but since they are undetectable, we can say that their existence is yet to be demonstrated.

“When you hear the word ‘energy’ being used in a sales pitch or an advertisement, pay very close attention to how it’s being used. If it’s anything other than a quantifiable measurement of work, the word is being misused and you are being misled. And now you have the tools to respond.”

In fact, the temple structure is built after the idol has been placed.

Does the idol draw all the “Energy” from that place or is it just placed in a place with full of “Energy”?  If it is the place that is important, then you accept that the idol is not important; and if you feel that the idol makes the “Energy” then you agree that the place was insignificant to begin with.

This *Moolasthanam* is where earth’s magnetic waves are found to be maximum.

Has anybody measured it? It’s really not all that difficult.

We know that there are some copper plates, inscribed with Vedic scripts, buried beneath the Main Idol. What are they really? The copper plate absorbs earth’s magnetic waves and radiates it to the surroundings.

Perhaps, worth only the value of copper (excluding any worth it may have gained as a result of it being an ‘antique piece.’  Copper is not attracted to magnets. Iron and perhaps Steel, Cobalt and Nickel are attracted to a magnet. Surely NOT copper plates. Perhaps Copper wire can be turned into a magnet, by passing electrical current; but surely NOT copper plates.

Thus a person regularly visiting a temple and walking clockwise around the Main Idol receives the beamed magnetic waves and his body absorbs it.

Once again, human body cannot receive magnetic waves (whatever they are) and surely the body cannot absorb it.  If that was the case, then imagine what would happen during every Magnetic resonance scan.

This is a very slow process and a regular visit will let him absorb more of this positive energy.

As clearly explained earlier, this is a flagrant, malevolent or (perhaps) ignorant but definitely a despicable act of hijacking the word “Energy” to make some woo-woo SOUND scientific; all a cheap attempt to beguile a credulous audience.

Scientifically, it is the positive energy that we all require to have a healthy life.

“Scientifically?” This again is a flagrant and malevolent misuse of the word Science to gain credibility.

The lamp that is lit radiates heat energy and also provides light inside the sanctum to the priests or *poojaris* performing the pooja.|

I wonder why they need the light and heat. Can’t they just use their divine powers? Why shouldn’t they simply pray to some “Light bagawaan” and “Heat bagawaan” for the same?  Perhaps, they know the futility of praying to Agni bagawaan if they resorted ONLY to prayers.

The ringing of the bells and the chanting of prayers takes a worshipper into trance, thus not letting his mind waver.

It’s only when you have already been led to believe during impressionable childhood into thinking of it in undeserved high regard that you feel that it takes you into a trance!

When done in groups, this helps people forget personal problems for a while and relieve their stress.

Ever wondered why the same effect NEVER happens whenever a christian/ muslim/ jew/ atheist enters a temple? Why is it that only the hindu finds the effect in a hindu place of worship? Such gatherings and rituals are sometimes, quite appropriately, called “Serotonin factories.” It might give you a high. But it is a false high.

The fragrance from the flowers, the burning of camphor give out the chemical energy further aiding in a different good aura.

There is that weasel word “Energy.”  For fragrance, going to a garden or a park is a far better experience. And camphor fumes are best avoided. It can only harm, and can never help.  It can cause seizures, hallucinations, confusion, etc!

*Theertham*, the “holy” water used during the pooja to wash the idol is not plain water cleaning the dust off an idol. It is a concoction of Cardamom,*Karpura* (Benzoin), zaffron / saffron, *Tulsi* (Holy Basil), Clove, etc…

Actually it is not plain water but contaminated water. If you want such a concoction, then it will be far better and safer to cook it hygienically in the kitchen.

Washing the idol is to charge the water with the magnetic radiations thus increasing its medicinal values.

“Charge the water with magnetic radiations?” As already explained, the idol or even the copper plates are NOT magnetic. And one cannot just “charge” the water with magnetic radiations. That hypothesis can be presented for a thorough peer review and scientific analysis. Also, such a water can only cause illness, it can never be medicinal.

Three spoons of this holy water is distributed to devotees.

Why only three? Why not 2 or 4? What is the sanctity of that number?

Again, this water is mainly a source of magneto-therapy.

Magneto-therapy is a scam. It is another form of quackery and already pointed out, medical quackery is one of the most odious of all charlatanry.

From 'A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism' by James Clark Maxwell (image in public domain)

Besides, the clove essence protects one from tooth decay, the saffron & *Tulsi* leaves protects one from common cold and cough, cardamom and *Pachha Karpuram* (benzoin), act as mouth fresheners.

So, why not just take the clove essence to protect from tooth decay? It will be far better to just follow regular oral hygienic measures which are tried and definitely tested too. Saffron and Tulsi protect from common cold? Why not suggest these to all the people who are so paranoid about the common cold and especially against Swine Flu nowadays? After all, the H1N1 is also a common cold causing virus.  Who will be ready to forego vaccination in lieu of this holy “theertham”?

It is proved that *Theertham* is a very good blood purifier, as it is highly energized.

“Blood purification” is mainly the job of the kidneys and the liver. Unless they explain what they mean by such vague terminologies, these claims must be dismissed off contemptuously.  And ruthlessly too, for it is dangerous to fool people when it comes to medical and health issues.

This is why our elders used to suggest us to offer prayers at the temple so that you will be cured of many ailments.

This is secondary rationalization. The “elders” have never ever mentioned in any of the holy scriptures that THIS was the reason. You are just trying to beguile the innocent people. For your kind information, the so called elders had no valid ideas about what CAUSED the ailments.

When people go to a temple for the *Deepaaraadhana*, and when the doors open up, the positive energy gushes out onto the persons who are there.

What is the positive energy that gushes out?  Again that weasel word “Energy” is used.

The water that is sprinkled onto the assemblages passes on the energy to all.

How?

This also explains why men are not allowed to wear shirts at a few temples and women are requested to wear more ornaments during temple visits.

Why? Should only the men benefit and not the women? Once again goes to show how all religions are misogynistic to the core. In all probability the men are basically forced to be bare-chested so that they could identify who are all wearing the sacred thread and who are not. Nothing but organized, divinely codified and sanctioned discrimination.

Also, it is a practice to leave newly purchased jewels at an idol’s feet and then wear them with the idol’s blessings.

For what? And how does the idol bless the jewels and what is the effect of the blessing?

This act is now justified after reading this article. This act of “seeking divine blessings” before using any new article, like books or pens or automobiles may have stemmed from this through mere observation.

Well the article was nothing but a bunch of utterly baseless claims.

Energy lost in a day’s work is regained through a temple visit and one is refreshed slightly.

What is the energy lost and how does a temple visit help in regaining it?

The positive energy that is spread out in the entire temple and especially around where the main idol is placed, are simply absorbed by one’s body and mind.

How does one’s ‘body and mind’ absorb the ‘energy spread out?’

Did you know, every Vaishnava(Vishnu devotees), “must” visit a Vishnu temple twice every day in their location.

Why should it be a MUST? Do you know that every muslim MUST perform the prayers 5 times a day at specific times. Is it be considered MORE powerful than the Vaishnava practice? Surely 5>2, right?

Our practices are NOT some hard and fast rules framed by 1 man and his followers or God’s words in somebody’s dreams. All the rituals, all the practices are, in reality, well researched, studied and scientifically backed thesis which form the ways of nature to lead a good healthy life.

“Well researched”? Can we have references please? “Studied” by whom? Can I please have access to the peer reviewed papers on this? “Scientifically backed thesis”?  Do you have proof for it being scientifically backed? In fact, this is the antithesis of science. Taking the name of science to garner automatic respect should be challenged head on!

The scientific and research part of the practices are well camouflaged as “elder’s instructions” or “granny’s teaching’s” which should be obeyed as a mark of respect so as to once again, avoid stress to the mediocre brains.

Mediocre brains? How can you automatically assume that all human brains are mediocre? Isn’t it condescending on your part? As elaborated earlier, there is NOTHING scientific in all the practices. In fact, they are all thoroughly irrational. And there is no proper scientific research in any of it. This talk of irrational statements being “camouflaged” is a cheap attempt at secondary rationalization. These were dogmatic dictates that one must follow and is so typically religious.

Wind energy converter. Photo by P0lyglut (CC BY-SA 2.0).

To sum up, whenever you hear the word “energy” being mentioned anywhere please substitute the word with “measurable work capability” and check if it still makes sense. If it does, then it is proper science (because that’s what it means in science); and if it sounds like nonsense then it indeed is nonsense and the person is trying to use the word “energy” just to sound scientific. E.g. “Positive energy”, “Negative energy”, “Spiritual energy” and “Divine energy”.

Similarly, whenever someone uses the word “vibration”, replace it with “uniform oscillation around a mean” or “a regular periodic variation about a mean”. If it still makes sense, then it is proper science (because that’s what it means in science); and if it sounds like nonsense then it indeed is nonsense and the person is trying to use the word “vibration” just to sound scientific. E.g., “Positive vibrations”, “Negative vibrations”, “Spiritual vibrations” and “Divine vibrations”.

Related posts:

1. The Art Of Pseudoscience (Featuring The Gayatri Mantra)- A Five Step Program
2. Pseudoscience: A Brief Introduction
3. Pseudoscience In The Stars: An Indian Rationalist’s Experiences with Astrology

(First published in Sandhan (Journal of Centre for Studies in Civilizations), Vol. VIII, No. 1 , Jan.-June 2008, pp. 165-173 (New Delhi). )

Homeopathy is one of those things that arouse immediate reactions, indeed passions, in most people. A Google search for homoeopathy yields two million, six hundred and thirty thousand hits in fourteen-hundredths of a second. Modifying the keyword to homeopathy produces no less than twenty-three million, three hundred thousand ‘results’ in sixteen-hundredths of a second, showing that the American spelling of the word is by far the preferred version for aficionados. While this is understandably less stupendous than the Google results for sex (a staggering three billion five hundred thirty million in eighteen-hundredths of a second!), it is still quite impressive. There can be no doubt that homeopathy is quite a preoccupation of sizeable segments of the human race.

There are really two very different questions involved in any discussion of homeopathy: (i) Does it work? (ii) Is its formulation consonant with modern scientific methodology as we understand the latter phrase? These questions are only loosely related to each other. If we understand that clearly at the outset, almost all of the heat and noise that usually accompany  the debate can be avoided.

A basic problem is that homeopathy has been formulated like a dogma. It is not self-correcting or inclusive like normal science is. The latter keeps expanding its boundaries, and does not hesitate to back-track and correct its earlier stance when new evidence comes in. homeopathy, on the other hand, is largely based on Hahnemann’s ‘insight’ or ‘revelation’, as laid down by him—and as amended with equal arbitrariness by several subsequent followers, when they found that some of his ‘principles’ were too patently absurd for even the most credulous adherent to swallow. It is obvious that the dilutions (‘potencies’) involved in the medicinal prescriptions of homeopathy, like one part in ten raised to the power of two hundred, are not merely preposterous, but just plain silly. There are nowhere near ten raised to the power of two hundred elementary particles in the entire known universe. So—all right, perhaps he was mistaken about that, it’s just a small error (it is by no means small), and maybe it should be just one part in two hundred, or two thousand, or twenty thousand, or something? Does it matter? With this kind of shifting goalpost and convenient alteration of interpretation, what are we talking about?

A more candid précis of homeopathy could well be something like: “Here is a more-or-less random set of compounds that seem to work in the case of some ailments. The precise active ingredients are unknown, but they’re present—or probably present, or maybe present—who knows, what does it matter—in various strange places ranging from tree bark to dried buffalo tails. So we thought we’d process them into tiny little round white sugar-coated balls and label them with Latin names so you’ll think they’re exotic and therefore powerful, and sell them to you, after patiently listening to you describing your symptoms at length. You see, we know that the other kind of doctor doesn’t let you get in a word edgewise, but only goes on prescribing more expensive tests, so you already think we’re giving you a much better deal. Now do be sure take the little sugary balls every day before dawn and after sundown so that the sun’s rays don’t make them lose their ‘power’, and you’ll feel a lot better. If you don’t, come back and tell us and we’ll just change the ‘potency’. But if you do feel better, we know you’ll automatically have this irresistible urge to tell all your friends, and that kind of purely anecdotal recommendation is the staunchest advocate and strongest advertisement we could ever have asked for!”

More seriously: the obvious phenomenon that comes to mind as the one that could be involved in many ‘successful cures’ is catalysis. Maybe even extremely small doses of heavy metals and ions could have large effects on the incredibly complicated biochemistry that goes on inside ourselves? This is not only possible, but also a demonstrable fact. And maybe the homeopathic (‘homeopathetic’ would be a low blow!) principle of viewing the symptoms as the disease, and basing the ‘cure’ on the symptoms alone, is not an altogether outlandish one— because symptoms arise when the body makes an effort to protect itself from further damage, and the immune system starts taking steps to cure the body; therefore, inducing further production of antibodies or whatever by the catalytic action of something that imitates or even exacerbates the symptoms isn’t such a bad idea after all? Maybe. But it certainly can’t be the whole story. And it’s all done by most of its practitioners in such a scientifically sloppy manner, and in such a curtly dismissive ‘I’m a seasoned adept, and I have an intuition about these things that I can’t be bothered to formulate explicitly’ fashion, that it reduces to little more than a cult, and many serious would-be investigators get turned off.

What are we to make of a ‘system’ of medicine that, till fairly recently, didn’t think that anatomy had anything to do with medicine, but only symptoms did? The grudging nod given to subjects like anatomy (let alone more advanced ones like surgery) in more recent ‘schools of homeopathy’ have more to do with the desire for acceptability as a science (by a public that is nowadays more exposed to the technological tools developed by science, and hence imagines itself to be more scientific than its predecessors), than the actual development of the subject of homeopathy as a science, if that were at all possible.

The second problem is that, contrary to what one might guess offhand, it is remarkably hard to collect significant statistical data in a scientific manner on the efficacy of fringe medicine of various kinds. This is especially so for data on comparative studies of different systems of medicine, especially vis-á-vis conventional medicine. A precise description of the problem would involve going into the details of the protocols that are required to be set up for meaningful studies of this kind. For the purposes of illustration, however, let me describe in rather naive fashion the kind of study that would be entailed in comparing conventional medical treatment of some common ailment with, say, the treatment of the same ailment by homeopathy. We would need a sufficiently large number of patients in nearly the same physical condition, to be observed over a fairly protracted period while under different treatment regimens. For example, we might start with four hundred patients all suffering from essentially the same ailment, and separate them into four groups A, B, C and D of a hundred each. (Fifty each would be too small a number, and five hundred each might be much more difficult to line up.) Group A is then treated by conventional medicines, group B by placebos for such medicines, group C by medicines prescribed by homeopathy, and group D by placebos for these medicines. Additional safeguards such as double blinds must be incorporated. Careful monitoring of all the patients and recording of the data must followed by a rigorous statistical analysis of the results. You can readily imagine how difficult it will be to get everybody involved to agree upon the details, and to even set up such an elaborate study.

Unfortunately, the practitioners of conventional medicine also contribute in some measure to the difficulties just described. One cannot help getting the impression that a section of the medical fraternity itself operates in some respects like an exclusive guild, loath to expose too many of its ‘secrets’ to open and unbiased scrutiny. As a trite manifestation of this tendency, haven’t we all faced doctors who don’t really like to explain things in detail to lay persons, and who think that the rest of us are basically too dense to understand the deep mysteries of their subject? It is not unusual to get a patronising brush-off when one asks questions that are more penetrating than a meek and hoary: “Should I take this tablet before food or after food?” And the practitioners of fringe medicine are even more secretive, paranoid about being questioned, and aggressively defensive (and evasive) about their particular recipes and panaceas—perhaps with good reason! At any rate, getting together whole groups of people with such strongly divergent views, for an objective and impartial study by knowledgeable neutral observers, would probably be even more difficult than running  a peaceable interfaith meeting among a gaggle of monomaniacal religious leaders. Even within the framework of conventional medicine, given the vested interests of diverse players including rival pharmaceutical firms, distributors, financiers, advertising agencies, doctors, hospitals, research funding agencies, research laboratories, and other sectors of the medical world, arranging for reliable, unbiased clinical trials of an experimental drug is difficult enough, as a long-suffering public has learnt, to its cost.

The fact is that the empirical content of medicine as a discipline is still quite high. There’s actually nothing wrong with that, per se. Sound empirical knowledge is the starting point for a sturdy science. But, unfortunately, many medical specialists themselves seem to feel, rather needlessly, that this empirical component somehow diminishes the scientific credentials of their discipline, and makes it less high-brow than it deserves to be. Therefore, in order to keep up the notion that their particular form of medicine is completely scientific, these experts feel that they must constantly remind lay persons that all but the broadest details of their speciality are too complex to be explained easily to a non-specialist. Such evasions are made easier, and more persuasive, by the fact that most people visit doctors only when they are already in a rather helpless situation and a vulnerable state of mind, which makes them psychologically less discerning than usual. What is being missed here by both parties is that empirical knowledge does not make medicine unscientific, but merely less deterministic than a subject with a more developed analytical framework. But the very hallmark of a developing science is the gradual replacement of empirical content by a methodological structure that enables greater predictability and control. In this sense there need be no misgivings about the scientific nature of modern medicine.

If this is the state of affairs even with conventional modern medicine, it is no wonder that the ambivalence of identity is much more pronounced in the case of various fringe or ‘alternative’ systems of medicine—all too many of which are no more than purported systems of medicine. Nor is it hard to understand why such systems are even more reluctant to subject themselves to serious, objective, unbiased, third-party evaluations and tests under carefully-documented and controlled conditions. Most of the claims of these systems would not withstand rigorous scientific scrutiny at even a cursory level, let alone deep and sustained probing.

We now come to the argument in favour of homeopathy that is trotted out most frequently: “But it really worked in the case of my nephew’s jaundice, or my aunt’s asthma!” No doubt it did, as far as one can tell. Or maybe something else did (naturopathy, acupuncture, …. take your pick, for the litany of sad tales of human gullibility is as fascinatingly varied as it is long). Or maybe what did it was a combination of prayer, homeopathy, bland food, the sympathy of relatives, the pleasant company of friends, calming music, and a regular regimen and plenty of fresh air and sunshine and the stoppage of antibiotic overdose. And let’s not forget the most helpful de-stressing effect of sincere belief in the efficacy of those little sugary balls in contributing to the eventual cure! The truth is that we have no sure-fire, foolproof way of knowing, or finding out, precisely what did it, notwithstanding the most sincere protestations of the patient himself and the sworn testimony of those around the patient. The veracity of the patient is not under question here, nor is the probity of the witnesses. It is just that these qualities do not suffice to yield, and cannot replace, truly objective scientific experimentation and observation. Such is the level of rigour and control demanded by the uncompromising procedure of data acquisition in science.

It is obvious that we have barely scratched the surface of the mountain of knowledge of what our body and mind can do in tandem with each other. We simply don’t know enough about what the subtle mechanisms are, where they lie, and exactly what triggers them. We haven’t even figured out how the immune system itself, a sort of mobile in situ ‘brain’ located all over our bodies, really works. When we do discover all these things, and we’ll surely do so eventually (maybe in another hundred or two hundred years), matters will look a lot less mysterious than they do now. Meanwhile, what about homeopathy to cure this ailment or that? Should one take recourse to it? Well, if it works for you, or if you think it works for you, or if you think it will work for you because it worked for a friend whose word you trust, or if you think you have nothing to lose by trying it out, why shouldn’t you do so—provided you aren’t imprudent enough to neglect a truly serious and threatening health situation for which there does exist a scientific method of treatment? But there’s no need to swallow (along with those little sugary balls) the accompanying hype about its being a scientific mode of treatment, because it just isn’t so. Caveat emptor!

The dilemma that seems to arise (at least for the small segment of the population that prides itself on being rational in all matters) is whether one is then being unscientific in practice, while professing to adhere to scientific principles. This is a more difficult question, but the answer is simple and virtuous. It is quite evident that everything we do in daily life is not necessarily scientific—often because there are as yet no satisfactory scientific underpinnings or theories for those things! As obvious examples, we have the enjoyment of fiction, of literature that speaks of purple skies and fairies in the garden, of poetry that swears that girls’ eyes look like stars. Do we really want to point out to poets that girls’ eyes can’t possibly be related to enormous aggregations of hot gas undergoing nuclear fusion? On a more serious note, we have psychology and sociology and economics and finance, and the myriad other expressions of consciousness and free will for which we haven’t even begun to frame the questions in the proper scientific manner. Does this—should this—preclude us from acknowledging their existence, experiencing their functioning, and enjoying their fruits? I should think not. But all of us can contribute to the desideratum of an ethos enhanced by a scientific and rational temper:

• We must refuse to encourage or accept ‘explanations’ that are mere mumbo-jumbo clothed in scientific jargon, as if this suffices to make them respectable, let alone correct.
• We need to recognise that the world around is a hierarchically organised progression into increasing complexity: from quarks to atoms and molecules, through biomolecules, cells and organisms, to humans and society, to … who knows what?
• We ought to allow for the fact that science as we understand it is less than four hundred years old, which is—incredibly enough—just about a dozen human generations or so, when you think about it. This is less than a blink of an eye on evolutionary time scales, let alone geological time scales, much less cosmological time scales. It is rather negligible even compared to recorded history. For all those who admonish: “Don’t think science knows everything or can answer all questions”, I say: science does not think it knows everything, and we do need to give it a little more time! We must be alive to the possibility that scientific explanations may exist (and emerge one day) for most things, perhaps even all things, rather than get into a mystic mode and declare dogmatically that ‘there are things beyond science’. They may indeed be beyond today’s science, but how can anyone be so presumptuous as to declare that something will be beyond the ken of rational enquiry forever? Science is nothing if not eclectic, in the best sense of the word.

That’s the whole point—what it doesn’t know right now, science will eventually find out, and incorporate into its accumulated body of knowledge. That’s equally true of medicine, naturally. One day we will surely find out exactly how asthama or eczema or other allergies can be controlled, and how and why little sugary balls containing a little arsenic, perhaps, and called surefirecura mysteriosa or something like that, may actually have helped trigger a cure in some cases. While not decrying the utility of this apparent magic in some instances for some individuals at some time, let’s not confuse it with science. There is no real need to do so! Likewise, there is no need to take seriously the purveyors of apparently scientific explanations of why homeopathy works—and such theories emerge out of the woodwork with tireless regularity. Recent ones include the attribution of long-lived ‘memory’ to water molecules, and the invoking of a quantum mechanical phenomenon called entanglement. (Quantum mechanics seems to hold as fatal an attraction for pseudoscientists as the proverbial flame does for moths.) Meanwhile, the most recent careful studies of the efficacy of homeopathy seem to indicate that it is essentially comparable to, and consistent with, that of placebos. The deep neurological and psychological reasons for placebo action are yet to be fully understood, but it is a real and well-documented phenomenon.

The probability of Materia Medica replacing molecular medicine texts in the year 2100 is near zero, if things go well. But should it happen, we can also be sure that our descendants of that day will be wearing rough animal hides and rubbing stone against stone to produce fire, while they discuss the relative merits of goat hair and bat droppings for relieving joint pain. In that case, none of this will matter. May that never come to pass!

(Prof.V.Balakrishnan is a theoretical physicist working in IIT, Madras. He is a popular teacher of Physics. His engaging lecture series on Classical Physics and Quantum Physics are available on youtube and are highly appreciated. )

Related posts:

1. A Scientific View of the God Delusion and it’s Implications
2. Randi Explains Homeopathy

Dr. Hegde begins his article with some quotations by famous people, and offers them as evidence that medicine in the past was better than it is today:

The quote below is one of the many brilliant sayings of that great brain, Sir William Osler. ‘One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicines.’

Photo by Seattle Municipal Archives/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Dr. Hegde, I guess you forgot to mention that this was intended for the quacks who call their wares “medicine”. I challenge you to never take any medicines. Also, William Osler has also said this: “The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.”

In the 21 century, I could only echo that great sentiment as a truism, despite all the tall talk about the “so-called” evidence-based medicine. Napoleon Bonaparte went one step further, but one could argue that he was not a physician. He was at the receiving end of such a medical practice when he died. “Medicine is a collection of uncertain prescriptions the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind.” Napoleon, though, was more accurate scientifically today.

The thing to remember is the time when these people made those alleged comments. What was medicine then? It was not what we have today! There was not much useful or factual there in “Medicine” in those days. It involved primitive practices like Leeching, Blood letting, Purging, etc. No wonder people tried to come up with all kinds of “alternatives”. Evidence Based Scientific Medicine (EBSM) has marched on tremendously in the past 100 years to be entirely different from what these gentlemen knew at their times as “medicine”. If I could point out a proverb in Tamil, “Aayiram paerai konnaathaan, ara vaithiyan!” (it’s only when you kill a thousand people that one can become even half a doctor) – that was medicine for you in those days. Trial and error; no proper scientific methodology. That was the basis of your “ancient medicine”.

The latest science says uncertainty is the only certainty in the world. This is truer in medical science.

Really? Is there any uncertainty about what causes Malaria? Or Tuberculosis? Or what is the reason for Down’s syndrome or the fact that Rickets is caused by Vitamin D deficiency, or that Nyctalopia (Night blindnesss) is caused by Vitamin A deficiency? I wonder which “medical science” you are talking about. I am sure you are referring to the medical “science” of S.C.A.M.s (So-called Complementary & Alternative Medicines) and not Evidence Based Scientific Medicine (EBSM).

A proverb is a short sentence based on a long experience. If that were so, this one from Voltaire would take the cake: “The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”

Again, just imagine what was the level of advancement of “medicine” during Voltaire’s times, viz. the 18th century. That would explain why the great man said that. The same Voltaire has also said, “A witty saying proves nothing!”.

Time and again, I have written in my articles elsewhere that our evidence base has been built on loose sand.

Have you provided any good evidence for this allegation? Even assuming it is built on loose sand, that doesn’t mean you start questioning its basic principles. Our endeavour must be to strengthen the foundation, to tighten that “loose sand”. The evidence base is the ONLY way to a better system. And as with everything scientific, the “evidence base” is not any infallible and unquestionable dogma! The quest for betterment is a never-ending process that is constantly scrutinized rigorously and in the process ironing out the flaws, accepting newer evidence and discarding proven false or spurious evidence. Perhaps you can read about Barry Marshall to find out how important it is to provide evidence before your hypothesis is taken seriously.

Of course, no one seems to take it seriously.

Yes sir…

They would have, if it had any financial interest behind it.

I knew this was coming!

The present Randomised Controlled Trials and linear relations help generate billions of dollars in chemical therapeutics even if that results in thousands dying of our efforts directly or indirectly. A study by researchers in a respectable U.S. university of the placebo-based RCTs did show that the contents of the placebo capsule, which need not legally be made known to the regulating agencies like the FDA, were very potent substances that would show the company drug as very effective in comparison. To cite an example, anti-diabetic drugs are usually compared with sugar filled placebo capsules! Many such glaring criminal activities have come to light now in the field of “Evidence-based medicine” of today!

Image via Flickr user Tulane Public Relations by Creative Commons License.

Do you realize what you have just said? I hope you are blaming the individual trials and not the method. If it’s the former, then you are entitled and even upright about it; but in case you are trying to deride the method itself then I am afraid that your argument is a weak one. http://www.bmj.com/content/316/7126/201.full
Perhaps you didn’t notice this: Even this information bringing to light the despicable act of manipulating trials to show the desired end results, was a result of another study which was again scientific! I would like to point out once again that SCIENCE IS SELF-CORRECTING. There is nothing dogmatic about science. That is the beauty of “Evidence Based” science. Even the fact that there were some unscrupulous practices going on was found out because of the rigorous, unyielding and unbiased methods of science.

Recently, I had a message from one of my students, who is a leading dermatologist in India doing innovative research. “I always wondered when I used to listen to you during my student days and respected your views all along. In dermatology evidence is found only in 28 per cent of published studies. All molecular biology companies come with an offer to give authorship if we buy their equipment for our laboratory! Doesn’t that mean that most molecular biology studies are prototype and try to find out how what is known fits into their study?”

So what? Really, so what? How can that equate to “Evidence Based Scientific Medicine is flawed”? The evidence in this case is bad. And let me reassure you that the inherent, self-correcting methods of science will iron out the flaws in due course of time. Haven’t you heard of drugs being recalled, for example? There is a regulatory body, and perhaps there may be evil, corrupt individuals in those. But all of them are accountable and they eventually get found out, sooner rather than later.

The foundations of our evidence in modern medicine like the statistical risk calculations, (especially the relative risk reductions in place of absolute risk reductions that are sold to gullible doctors in most of the “scientific” articles without mentioning the NNT figures) and, the RCTs, which have no true science base, are very shaky, indeed.

Now are you accusing the foundation itself to be flawed? I agree that the “Big, Evil” Pharma companies might indulge in these kinds of shady activities. But have you ever wondered why they still keep talking in terms of RCTs, etc? That is because these are the only methods to assess efficacy accurately. Can you envision any other more valid method?
But when a Professor like you doesn’t understand it, how can we expect the general crowd to? The key remains not in deriding the method but in educating the doctors and the consumers about how to assess claims and analyze the research methodologies. A dose of skepticism is what we need to prescribe. I suggest you read the book “Bad Science” by Dr. Ben Goldacre. In fact, if I could, I would make this book a compulsory subject for all school students!

We need to have a new science of man, which is sadly missing in this whole bargain.

New science? What’s that? It is either science or it is nonsense, period. There is nothing like ancient science, medieval science, modern science, Indian science, Chinese science, Islamic science, voodoo science, or occult science. Anything that follows the scientific method is science. The rest is mere pretence.

Let us continue:

Physics changed in 1925 and there is no more physics, but we still use the same old physics laws for our statistics.

Again, so what? General relativity may have superceded Newtonian physics, BUT for basic purposes and practical ease, Newtonian physics is still good enough unless you want to pick on the nitty gritties. Don’t tell me it is totally useless. Not at all! It still gives fairly good understanding for all basic purposes. And your point that the “same old physical laws” are being used for our statistics is a non sequitur. Things won’t change much if we use the newer methods. It’s not that if we apply the latest, cutting edge physical laws, then automatically all the S.C.A.M.s will be validated while EBSM will be discredited. But hey, why don’t you try it?

Matter is not made up of matter. Matter and energy are interchangeable. (journalofcosmology.com/QuantumConsciousness106.html) Human molecules communicate with one another which can now be documented through the photon lights emitted from each DNA.

Woo, and more woo. Notions of “quantum consciousness” have been debunked. Let’s restate what you have said, shall we? “Human molecules communicate with one another which can now be documented through the photon lights emitted from each DNA.”
What?! How can molecules communicate with one another? Then what about the molecules in an inanimate object? Are they any different from those in lifeforms? You are credulous to the core, and I hope you learn some critical thinking skills.

What is the science base of our reductionism, organ based specialisation and our reliance on Mendelian inheritance?

The proof lies in the pudding. These concepts have been proven to be working.

Instead of trying to rehash the existing evidence base, it is better to think of a new evidence base for health and illness.

Well, nothing wrong with that. All the progress everywhere is exactly because of this. And, this is in fact a key feature of science! A new evidence base that you are advocating is indeed worthwhile. But rest assured that unless the current concepts are “DIS”proved, they will remain. The aim is not in formulating dogmatic theories and sticking obdurately to them, but in better understanding of medical science. Newer evidence is always welcome. In fact, any newer evidence that might contradict the existing concepts will be thoroughly investigated and gladly accepted if it stands up to rigorous scrutiny. So, if you really have some ‘new evidence base for health and illness’ then please put them forward for peer review. Let’s see how they stack up to current knowledge.

Health is a state where each human body cell is in sync with other cells. Illness is when this communication breaks down. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophoton)

This is no different from the concept of the “Ancient Wisdom” (this term itself is a fallacy- something ancient need not necessarily be wise) involving the “phlegms”, “biles”, “imbalances” and various other fanciful words. You have merely rehashed those ancient concepts of biles and phlegms into a new-age version of “communication and sync between molecules”.
Now, that’s an assertion and a statement… if you can back it up with evidence and how it can be falsified, then it will be useful. Thank you.

We need a new non-linear, holistic, dynamic, scientific base for future medical research.

Only the Scientific part is essential. It will definitely encompass useful contributions (if any) from the other mentioned parts.

Nature has provided a robust repair mechanism inside the human system -

May be robust, but not ALWAYS satisfactorily complete. And for your kind information, cancer is “natural” too.

- which has been weakened by our modern lifestyle.

So, blame the modern lifestyle. Don’t blame the science. And in fact, even this information is a result of a SCIENTIFIC inquiry.

Even though both Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur did note that the “terrain is more important than the seed” we have gone the whole hog on the seed, risk factors, and what have you. Modern medicine has forgotten the essence of illness care which is basically strengthening the terrain.

More bunk! Where exactly has ‘modern medicine’ forgotten the essence of illness care and strengthening the terrain? I hope you are aware and have not forgotten about the field called “Preventive & Social Medicine”. It is an elementary subject in medicine and one cannot become a doctor without studying it.

Our ancient wisdom Indian Ayurveda and many other complementary systems stress just that fact to strengthen one’s immune system. Ayurveda has many immune boosting modalities in its armamentarium.

I was wondering when this would come up. The various S.C.A.M.s (including Ayurveda) might talk about “strengthening the immune system” but what do they offer? What exactly does “strengthening the immune system” mean? It’s easy to say such things, but what is their understanding of the immune system? It’s zilch! They knew nothing about illnesses! All that they had was a defunct concept involving such chimerical entities such as Vata, Pita & Kapha! Do you have any literature of the so called “Ancient Wisdom” that actually explains the immune system of the body and methods to strengthen it?

Many simple methods which have stood the test of time are being forgotten now, thanks to the brainwashing of the masses through mass media advertisements about the wrong approaches to keep one healthy.

For example? Can you name just one? These ancient systems may not entirely be useless. Let us point out that, it is a simple equation… If there is a way these ancient systems can help then it is by pointing out these “simple methods” that the ancient systems may have found out by trial and error, so that science can analyze it scientifically, identify the exact component of the concoction that is effective in alleviating the symptoms, the therapeutic characteristics, the adverse effects, ceiling dose, antidote in case of over dosage, and any safer alternative for the effective individual component including a synthetic form.

The leading one among them is goading people to have a regular “health” check-up.

Having a regular health check up is not a crime! What exactly in this practice do you find is bad? Let’s say someone is willing to sponsor a regular health checkup, will you suggest to decline it? Why?

Nothing could be more dangerous than that to apparently healthy people.

That is a statement that is condescendingly nonsensical. I urge you to re-read it and correct it forthwith. NOT getting a regular health checkup is definitely more dangerous than getting one regularly. Every single time! Just imagine yourself with a tumor or a brain aneurysm waiting to burst! Or perhaps a glaucoma?
And, I wonder how we can know if someone is healthy or not, without taking recourse to some scientific method?

When one is healthy one should NEVER ever go for a check up!

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The common man will have the doubt as to how he/she could know about health. One is healthy when one has a) enthusiasm to work and b) enthusiasm for being compassionate. One of the ancient exercises could be the most potent modern medicine, a daily walk if one is not a physical labourer. Universal love is another life-giving elixir.

Creative Commons/ZaldyImg

After 25 years follow-up of one of the largest-ever studies of risk factors (which are being sold to the gullible public day in, day out as silent killers), the MRFIT study (Multiple Risk Factor Interventional Trial) observed that: “In conclusion, we have shown that it is possible to apply an intensive long-term intervention program against three coronary risk factors, high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking with considerable success in terms of risk factor changes. The overall results do not show a beneficial effect on CHD or total mortality from this multiple risk factors intervention trial. (Zukel, Paul and Schnaper, 1981).”
In other words, they found that changing the “risk factors” does not apparently change the risks. This necessarily means that the “risk factors” are not as important as was thought. Indeed, it should be concluded that the “risk factors” were no such thing, at least as far as this trial is concerned.

Did you even realize that what you are saying here is also a part of the scientific method? EBSM involves precisely this. Everything follows the scientific method. Okay, now that you are sure that changing the “risk factors” does not apparently change the risks, I challenge you to indulge in smoking, high cholesterol food and avoiding any kind of measure against high blood pressure including anti-hypertensives if you may be taking any!

hardly any significant difference in the outcomes in mortality between the groups whose blood pressure was tightly controlled with drugs and the groups that changed their mode of living to a healthier one.

Again I repeat, where exactly in the annals of EBSM is it stated unambiguously that only medications need to be taken and no change to a healthy lifestyle must be undertaken? Your research methodology needs a lot of work here. Variables must always be separated! Let’s see a group that takes only medications and no change to a healthier lifestyle and compare that with a similar group that takes no medications and refuses to change to a healthier lifestyle. What do you think would the result be? Any guesses, sir?

Surrogate end point research could, at times, be dangerous especially in medicine where the NNT (a statistical term denoting the number needed to treat) is prohibitively high.

Well, what exactly do you propose as an alternative to the medications in such cases? If you are going to harp about lifestyle modification, then I wish to point out that lifestyle modification need not be considered as something alien to EBSM. These studies that you are citing are part and parcel of the scientific method that EBSM espouses. If we do a study and find that something is not that effective, then we try to modify it or abandon it and move on in the search for better modalities and interventions. Simple. (Aside – I hope you  are aware of  orphan drugs?)

I am sure the reader by now would have realised the significance of what William Osler’s prophetic statement of 1905 meant when the great physician did not have any of these powerful drugs that we have today.

Well sir, you have yourself admitted that they did not have the powerful drugs (and the investigation tools, and most importantly the knowledge) that we have today.

Cure rarely, comfort mostly but, console always should be our motto when one is ill.

I prefer this: Cure every time (if a cure is available); comfort every time (this is certainly possible); console always.

Patient care simply is caring for the patient.

Well, you are playing to the gallery now. You didn’t care much for humanity when you made such loose statements such as, “When one is healthy one should NEVER ever go for a check up”.

Let me make a fervent plea for parsimony in using drugs in the healthy segment of the population, by labelling these so-called risk factors as silent killers, in the fond hope of averting major problems in the future.

Well, even I am not averse to parsimony in using drugs in the healthy segment of the population, by labelling these so-called risk factors as silent killers, in the fond hope of averting major problems in the future. But let us apply that same parsimony to unproven, unscientific systems of S.C.A.M.s which are far more dangerous and useless.

We simply do not have any scientific evidence for their benefit as of now.

Thank you for finally using the words “scientific evidence”. That is the key point of this extended rebuttal of your claptrap.

Related posts:

1. Derren Brown’s ‘Crowd Experiment’: A Response from two Social Psychologists
2. Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe

—Thomas  Huxley on the worldview of  Vedanta

In studying the genealogy of Brahminism from the onset of the primary Vedas (Rig, Yajur and Sama) through its transition to the Upanishads and Puranas, keen insight will at times observe and marvel at how it has morphed progressively from its ritualistic origins to assume more and deadly forms, where caste, religion and spirituality were used as tools in the real scheme of power grab and exploitation of large sections of society.

Given that such a conclusion is not totally unwarranted by historical and sociological analysis, the overwhelming tide of reverence for and fetishistic following of the Upanishads or the Vedanta is a paradox that is a thorny challenge for critical refutation.

In one of my earlier articles concerning the folly of current fashions in the exposition of Bhagavad Gita, which is a particularly vicious and diabolical form of Upanishadic evangelism, I had represented its vision in a mocking vein thus:

“The central conception of Advaita philosophy and its current evangelism, is more or less, building of elaborate ‘castles in the air’ around the definition of the Brahman as the one and only unchanging ultimate reality beneath which lies the illusion of  constantly changing appearances and motions of the physical and transient world, where the ‘rope and the snake’ play the game of ‘snakes and ladders’ with our deluded senses, where Rishis, Gurus and Swamis play the great ‘Indian rope trick’ or tighten the hangman’s noose of ‘Self-Realization’ on bewildered devotees and followers, who are made to walk the ‘tight rope’ of avoiding ‘sense-objects’ and senseless objects in crossing the ‘transmigratory ocean of existence’, then selling such spiritual snake oil concoctions through speeches, books, seminars, study sessions and what not and misguiding and cheerleading innocent, gullible and earnest seekers of religion alike into a grand ‘wild-goose chase’ of the Brahman.”

The few critics of Vedanta and their incisive observations

Radicals of India’s pre-freedom era like BR Ambedkar and Lala Hardayal were even more scathing and unsparing in their denunciation of the Upanishadic spiritual tom-foolery. Ambedkar spoke in these unrelenting terms quoting from the observations of Thomas Huxley and Lala Hardayal:

“Of what use is this philosophy of the Upanishadas? The philosophy of the Upanishadas meant withdrawal from the struggle for existence by resort to asceticism and a destruction of desire by self-mortification. As a way of life it was condemned by Huxley in scathing terms: “No more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever been attempted than that achieved by the Indian ascetic anchorite; no later monarchism has so nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might run the risk of being confounded with idiocy.”

But the condemnation of the philosophy of the Upanishads is nothing as compared to the denunciation of the same by Lala Hardyal:

“The Upanishads claim to expound ‘that, by knowing which everything is known’. This quest for ‘ the absolute ‘ is the basis of all the spurious metaphysics of India. The treatises are full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations. And we have not learned that they are worthless. We keep moving in the old rut; we edit and re-edit the old books instead of translating the classics of European social thought. What could Europe be if Frederic Harrison, Brieux, Bebel, Anatole France, Herve, Haekel, Giddings, and Marshall should employ their time in composing treatises on Duns, Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, and discussing the merits of the laws of the Pentateuch and the poetry of Beowulf?

“Indian pundits and graduates seem to suffer from a kind of mania for what is effete and antiquated. Thus an institution, established by progressive men, aims at leading our youths through Sanskrit grammar to the Vedas via the Six Darshanas! What a false move in the quest for wisdom ! It is as if a caravan should travel across the desert to the shores of the Dead Sea in search of fresh water! Young men of India, look not for wisdom in the musty parchments of your metaphysical treatises. There is nothing but an endless round of verbal jugglery there. Read Rousseau and Voltaire, Plato and Aristotle, Haeckel and Spencer, Marx and Tolstoi, Ruskin and Comte, and other European thinkers, if you wish to understand life and its problems.

“But denunciations apart, did the Upanishad philosophy have any influence on Hinduism as a social and political system? There is no doubt that it turned out to be most ineffective and inconsequential piece of speculation with no effect on the moral and social order of the Hindus.”

Spiritualists like the Bourbons learn nothing from history nor forget its wrong lessons

But does any of this deter the almost universal applause and reverential awe that is the constant companion of Vedanta and its myriad gyrations of studies and expositions? Not a whit, if one were to consider how the likes of Anil Mehta and other such spiritual faithful from cults like Chinmaya Mission can dismiss any effort of debate with cryptic 3-liner responses.

So when I heard a response from one of the leading lights of the Vedanta blogosphere, I was initially hopeful that meaningful debate will get its fair share at last. But as it eventually turned out that, such hopes were premature and I realized that I was actually up against a Trojan Horse from the spiritualist camp. After some initial pleasantries, this gentleman committed the same sin of most spiritual apologists, mixing science and religion, using scientific and argumentative generalizations to question the rejection of Vedanta. As another ploy, he sent me a link to a brain-fryer of a book called ‘Vichar Sagar’, another tedious apologia for Vedic and Vedantic scriptures.

I am reproducing below some parts of my exchange with this person, whom I’ll refer to as “H.A.” (not his real name or initials). 

H.A.’s first comment to article on Bhagavad Gita via email:

Subject: The Ultimate Scientific Truth.

There is divergence of opinions about the truth, strategy, nature of the people etc. I realize that opinions cannot converge unless we agree on common principles, the biggest of them being ‘the truth absolute or ultimate’. I don’t know what you consider the ultimate truth, if any.

Any way I am interested in knowing what made you question or doubt the following points about Vedanta. I think if i know them i would be in better position to satisfy you to the best. It is from your above referred discussion.

• Questioning the suitability of the ‘rope and snake’ metaphor and its irrelevance to the question of interpreting real
• Pointing out the fallacies of the nature of Advaitic conception of knowledge which seems to fail even most basic tests of reason and empirical inquiry.
• Trying to reason that Consciousness has no real bearing on a comparison of illusion and reality

My response to H.A.’s question:

While there are many common principles which can form the framework of a living philosophy, these principles need to be practical and useful.

In all humility the principle of absolute or ultimate truth is not one of them since it is not practical as there is no definition of what constitutes ultimate truth.

To me, it is one of many jargons that abound in Hindu or vedic metaphysics. Vedanta claims that the ‘Brahman’ is the ultimate and only truth that is worthy of realization. But the texts are themselves not clear about the conception and identity of Brahman. Lot of arguments, opinions and riddles are posed about this entity without any conclusions being reached. One text contradicts the other with some texts even claiming that the ‘Brahman’ is beyond understanding and comprehension. If that is really the case, is not the quest of Brahman a futile exercise?!. Commentaries fare no better than the original texts, since there is not one but many flavors of  vedanta:

• Advaita Vedanta
• Dvaita Vedanta
• Visishtadvaita Vendanta

and more that I can’t recollect. But honestly these don’t make any practical sense, because truth or facts cannot be established by arguments and counter-arguments and nit-picking and hair-splitting about verses of Upanishads and the syllables and sounds of ‘OM’. That the earth is round and other physical facts were not determined by round-table debates of misguided prophets and deluded saints, but by observation, experiments and corroboration, and by putting our faculties to right use. Modern science is using such same empirical methods to unravel wonders of our brains and not doubting and dismissing the utility and testimony of our senses.

Vedanta makes blanket statements and assertions of this physical world being an illusion without providing one shred of evidence to support such brazen claims.  All its recourse is to blind faith, devotion and surrender to a teacher and unquestioning acceptance of the scriptural word.

H.A.’s counter-argument to my first response:

Belief, confusion, contradictions, mysticism are few of the unscientific aspects of Hindu metaphysics as per your understanding and I agree to the same. But does this all sufficient to dismiss altogether ‘The Truth’ so established by the Vedanta? It needs matching rebuttal comparable to the content and intent of the mechanism followed by these shastras. I expect the same in your next email about the specific few points raised by me.

The ‘Ultimate Truth’ may be defined as the one ‘which reveals and accounts for the existence of the universe as it is’ with all its cause and accordingly the scientific advancement may be directed.

Before you reply I wish you would have read or referred the likes of the book ‘Vichar Sagar’ by Nischal Das (http://www.archive.org/details/themetaphysicsof00sreeuoft ). If not taken as spiritualistic and viewed with scientific angle, it is formidable.

Before you explain the few points as referred by me I expect you would take the pros and cons of the issues as discussed in this analytical book. Of course you may not afford to spend such a time thing is different. Just like you I do believe Truth cannot be accepted just because Vedanta says. Let us arrive at it independently. Let us supplement science with the ideas of human beings. For I am satisfied with the ultimate truth ‘Brahman’ as realistically as E=mc2.

My rejoinder to his response above:

Skeptics are not dismissing the theories of the Vedanta. They are trying to question the claims of this school of ‘philosophic’ thought that their version of ‘truth’ or conception of the nature of reality is the real deal.

The playing field of a skeptic or a critical thinker is that of evidence, objectivity, feel, experience that is capable of validation by senses, perception, reason and logic, cross-verification of clues that must all tie to all threads and ends of a proposed theory that explains a phenomenon.

If this ‘truth’ that Vedanta is talking about of a unchanging reality super-imposed on an ‘illusory world of physical object and sensory experiences’ because senses are deluded into accepting illusion of physical appearances as reality, is an objective and valid one, as it sometimes claims, that claim should submit itself to objective and empirical verification.

But Vedantic apologists are not forthcoming with their proofs and evidences. They keep shifting the goal-posts, definitions, theories from time to time and hard as skeptics keep trying to pin them down, these idealists keep slipping out by changing the rules of the game. Vedantists cannot have their cake and eat it too.

Though commentaries, lectures and books on the Upanishads create heavy smoke-screens and fog around their theories, we can ferret out these recurring themes and components

• Universal Soul
• Individual soul
• Transmigration of the soul
• Karmic cyclicality and endless reversions of its cycles
• Release of the soul from transmigratory agony
• Final liberation of the soul and its unity with the Universal soul
• Realms through which the individual soul passes on its journey of final deliverance and unity with the Brahman
• Unified reality of the Brahman manifesting as the illusion of the physical world and sensory experience though the mechanism of Maya ( No explanation of why such an atrocity is being done by the Brahman is anywhere in the Upanishads)

I could go on and on, but the point is that all these things are in realm of speculation and imagination. The easiest way to resolve a controversy is provide a proof and experience of the claims that is at the heart of a controversy.

Skeptics have been waiting for centuries and no convincing proof or even good reliable evidence is forthcoming. All these airy-fairy concepts are resting on the shaky foundation of arguments, stories, fairy tales, tautological statements ( one example of a tautological statement is like this ( 1. “Since a higher reality exists, the current physical reality is not the ultimate reality” 2. “Because the the current physical reality is not the ultimate reality, therefore a higher reality exists and that is Brahman”).

The above is just one example, but the Upanishads, commentaries, its schools of thought are full of such circular arguments and reasoning. Upanishadic wisdom is worse than science fiction, it is metaphysical fiction.

When contradictions are pointed out, the defenders say that you have transcend your mind. My response is Good luck with that! As We  have better things to do in life.

The final critical punch that hoped to nip misleading and diversionary arguments  in the bud:

Further to my mail before this, let us briefly consider your statement
“So hope you will be as realistic as E=mc2 in your rebuttal of ‘Brahman’”

I see this as a trap that I don’t wish to fall into.

E=mc2 was proposed by scientists, which has been validated and accepted universally. It is upto the Advaitins and Vedantins, to contest and disprove it if they can with objective proofs and validations.

‘Brahman’ is a proposition of the Advaitins and Vedantins. The burden of proof is on them and lets us play by the rules of the game. As a skeptic I have the least eagerness or responsibility to provide a rebuttal. In my previous email I provided a few criteria that can serve to expose the lack of objectivity of the Vedantic propositions.

Don’t get me wrong, but refuting the Brahman or any other Vedic or Vedantic fantasy is like expecting to refute incontrovertibly the existence of fairies, ghosts, narasimha, pixies, flying monkeys, heaven, paradise, astral realms etc.

As the saying goes, “Fools can pose many many more questions than the wisest men can ever answer”.

Related posts:

1. Gems from Chinmayananda – The Spiritual Inanity series, Part I
2. Gems from Chinmayananda – The Spiritual Inanity series, Part II
3. Gems from Chinmayananda – The Spiritual Inanity series, Part III
4. Worldview Naturalism
5. 1000 Indian Freethinkers Event: A Conversation With Tom Clark On Worldview Naturalism

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

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. A Response to Dr. B.M. Hegde
4. 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. Do We Need Yoga?
3. Eyewitness report of the Psychic Yoga Challenge
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