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Presenting the past
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Gene research and spiritual quest could do with each other's support, says the tax official who has written a book on the Upanishads
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G.K. Pillai: `There is a need to build a bridge between the strides made by science in the last 60 years and the Upanishads.'— Photo: K. Gopinathan
THIS IS, perhaps, not the best of times to be writing about matters spiritual or religious. Particularly so if the book in question has a foreword by a religious head whose reputation is right now under cloud.
G.K. Pillai, the author of Upanishads for the Modern World (Jaico Books, Rs. 295), corrects you to say that the words "religious" and "spiritual" are not interchangeable and his book is on the latter and not the former. And the math head has written the foreword only as the "representative of Adi Shankaracharya, who compiled the Upanishads for the first time".
No institutions
The high-ranking tax official-turned-author of spiritual books (his earlier work is Mystical Awareness for the Modern Mind), in fact, holds some very strong views on institutionalisation of religion. "Spirituality does not go with political power and institutions," he says. "Those who gave us the Upanishads did not wear saffron clothes or any strange headgear. They just gathered a set of students and taught them what they knew." They were so against institutionalisation that they did not even put their name to the Upanishads.
Once you get over the initial hiccups, Dr. Pillai's approach does strike you as different from the usual takes on Gen X and spirituality that are a dime a dozen today. For one thing, you are baffled by how much science he packs into his arguments on spirituality. "Today gene research has reached such advanced stages that the entire horoscope of a person is a contained in a drop of blood." He goes into details about the recent findings in gene research that has proved conclusively that there is one common ancestry to the entire human race and finally return to the Upanishads: "The Upanishads are also speaking of the common heritage of the human race when they say Aham Brahmosmi and Thathwamasi."
Pillai feels that there is a need to build a bridge between the strides made by science in the last 60 years and the Upanishads, "the oldest knowledge system known to mankind". Ask him why science and spirituality should need each other's validation at all, and he quotes Aristotle: "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." He thinks that the saffron brigade, that never tires of speaking about the "so-called spirituality" and use it to divide people, would do well to read about genes. He is a little perplexed by the presence of doctors in this brigade. "Wonder what they read!"
For Dr. Pillai, science and spirituality together obliterate all notions of caste, religion, and all other divisions artificially created in society. He quotes extensively from a radical, but lesser-known treatise called Ashtavakra Gita dating back to 250 B.C. "The work has been deliberately suppressed by the hegemonic caste system because it threatens it," says Dr. Pillai. The work, he says, dismisses all divisions and speaks only of "keeping the consciousness alive by living a simple life". It dismisses even meditation as humbug. "It's an effort to concentrate one's mind and once there is a conscious effort, it is no longer meditation," he says. "The text was never given the importance of Vedas or Bhagavad Gita." Dr. Pillai's book has a chapter dedicated to Ashtavakra Gita.
Dr. Pillai's next book is on Ramana Maharshi, and in keeping with the tenor of all his arguments, it is titled Scientific Vision of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He says, showing the proof copy of the book: "This gentleman was a truly spiritual person."
On VAT
Dr. Pillai, who collects about Rs. 400 crore revenue annually as the Chief Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise and has written acclaimed books on Value-Added Tax in the past, turned to spirituality after he suffered a cardiac arrest and had a "near-death experience" in 1996 while playing tennis. "My pulse rate was 450 when I reached the hospital!" he recollects. That's when the man, who holds degrees in Physics, Chemistry, Psychology, and Economics, decided to explore the "intelligent energy" that pervades all forms of life, bringing into play all the other branches of learning he was acquainted with.
Dr. Pillai plans to soon start visiting schools and colleges to spread spiritual thoughts informed by scientific research. He is absolutely certain that he is not in the danger of turning himself into another institution in the process.
BAGESHREE S.
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