Anil K. Rajvanshi

P.O. Box 44, Phaltan-415523, Maharashtra

E-mail: anilrajvanshi@gmail.com

There is a beautiful anecdote about Shri. Ramakrishna - the great saint of India. A disciple came to him and told him that after 20 years of tapasya (spiritual practice) he had mastered the art of walking on water. To this Shri. Ramakrishna replied "Fool, you have wasted your life. I can do the same thing by giving a paisa to the boatman!" One of the greatest spiritual persons, who himself possessed immense yogic powers, Shri. Ramakrishna understood the value of technology for easing the drudgery of life and hence his rebuke.

Even in the most ancient spiritual book of India (Patanjali yoga darshan), out of a total of 195 Sutras about 55 (1/3rd of the total) talk about powers that can be obtained through Yoga and what they can do. Basically they are about how a Yogi can gain control over nature which is nothing but technology! These powers are supposed to help him in the path of spiritual growth.

Technology helps humans by making their life easy so that they can focus on larger and more important issues. Surely humans have also used technology for killing other humans and in other non-productive uses. Similarly the powers obtained by Yogis in ancient times have also been used to kill. There are a large number of such examples in the Indian epic Mahabharata and the amusing story of Bhasmasur also shows the same thing. Yet the power of technology today helps us to be connected via World Wide Web, to fly at will round the world and generally to get most of the things required for creature comforts.

In old times it was a tradition in most cultures to renounce worldly comforts and immerse oneself in meditation for spiritual upliftment. Only a very few great souls succeeded in doing it. Thus the world produced spiritualist leaders like Buddha, Christ, Mahaveer, Shankaracharya etc. but with technology and Internet it may be possible to produce thousands of Buddhas, Christs etc. Recent scientific evidence suggests that human beings are wired to think about spiritual matters once their basic needs are met. I feel that technology allows mankind to take care of its basic needs so that a large number of people can focus on higher and spiritual matters. It also allows very rapid information dissemination, allows debate and hence facilitates the understanding of higher thought.

Technological progress also unravels a lot of hidden areas and shows how nature performs its miracles. In doing this, technology helps us understand the power and greatness of nature. For example humans felt that they had invented and developed fiber optics. However, scientists have found that the root systems of plants are excellent optical fibers – something that has existed in nature for millions of years. This knowledge could only come once we had enough technology for creating fiber optics, lasers etc. Similarly a new science of "copy the nature", is developing where we are finding that nature has far better answers than we have produced and hence a realization that our technological progress will take a quantum leap by copying nature's designs.

This evolutionary step therefore points to the fact that as we progress ahead in the technological area, we will discover the great laws of nature and ultimately God. For GOD is nothing else but this marvelous Universe which follows its own scientific laws and gods are beings with extremely advanced technologies. Spirituality is nothing else but understanding of the laws of universe through the tools of science and technology.

In coming years we will follow the maxim "first have sustainable development on earth and then explore the space". Naturally there are many attempts by advanced nations to go into space but these attempts are like the few spiritual leaders of past. Mankind as a whole can make a large-scale attempt at space exploration, only after achieving great technological progress. Thus I feel that when mankind starts the intergalactic travel it will become a very great technological civilization which will also be spiritually evolved. There will always be a section of the race, which will try to use the technology for achieving their ulterior motives, and for harmful purposes. But on the whole the technological progress will follow the Maxwellian bell curve, where the majority of mankind will use the technology for its betterment.

There are quite a lot of people who talk of technology as something of a hindrance in the path to spirituality. This is mostly true of fundamentalist groups all over the world. I think they understand neither technology nor spirituality. Technological progress is a natural evolutionary process for mankind and even if we wish it away it will go on. Similar is the case with spiritual progress. Only those societies that are technologically advanced will also become spiritually advanced. Therefore a necessary condition for large-scale spiritual progress is to have technological progress.

The next biggest challenge for mankind will be to enable 2 billion people, who live in conditions of utter poverty, to become part of this technological revolution. They cannot think of spiritual matters, since their basic needs are still unmet. It is not an easy task to achieve but I feel that mankind has enough ingenuity and resources to do this. How many years it will take we do not know but I feel that it will be the next frontier for mankind and feel optimistic that it will eventually be done.

Today far more people than ever before believe in life after death, in spiritual matters and in extrasensory perception. Popular poll after poll have shown this trend all over the world. I believe this has only come about because of the ability of human beings, through technological progress, to research these areas. For example we can now map the brain with the latest tools of MRI and can even "see" what the brain is doing in a heightened state of spiritual experience. Similarly we can peer through extremely sophisticated telescopes like Hubble to see the unfolding of the great drama of galaxy formation. It fills us with awe and amazement. Thus we are creating the building blocks of the laws of spirituality by poking deeper and deeper into nature with technological tools.

Published as an editorial article in Times of India (Speaking Tree section) on 25^th January 2002.

HOME