On the Tao Of Physics#2

This and the next 2 posts are Shankar's replies to my e-mail.

Hi,

I did not read the entire book. However, I will try answering the questions
according to my chota dimag.

1.Religion is a kind of user interface to the philosophical thoughts. See,
many of the philosophical thoughts are quite abstract and people use
religion as an approximation to comprehend the abstract teachings.

The aim of philosophy, I feel, is self realization i.e a better a
understanding of your life and the surroundings which affect directly or
indirectly ur life. Only by self realization, ie by knowing who am i? whats
my role in the world, can we try to attempt the more difficult question of
why I am here, and what next.

The path of self realization is very tough and I feel religion is a
companion/ friend/ guide/ vehicle that eases our journey. Lets take a simple
example of meditation. U try medidating with blank thoughts ie the state of
void, No thoughts entering ur mind and its perfectly peaceful. This is the
ideal state, that we shud strive.


But meditation by no thoughts is very difficult. So what they suggest is to
medidate ny focussing on one thought, ie thoughts about God, which is
definiltely easier than the previous one.

Thus we see religion has made our journey somewhat less tedious.

That's what I feel is the role of religion.

To further substantiate, I have read translations of 3 different shlokas in
one of the orkut communities. One on shiva, one on krishna(gita) and one on
shakti (lalita sahasranama). All three are exactly similar extolling the
opulence of respective deities.so what does it signify?

The simplified view is that there are inherent contradictions in the
scriptures themselves. But is it so? How I understand it is not one of
contradiction but one of convergence.

There is something called the Supreme Being ( what Adishankara called
brahman)and the religion has given us different instances of the same thing.
For some, he is krishna, for others rudra and for some she is shakti. That's
the role religion set out to fulfill but now people are missing the woods
for the trees.

I will mail u those three translations when I reach home.

I hope, I am coherent. If not tell me I will mail u in the weekends.

Other questions I will answer later

Regards
shankar