In this episode we welcome Dr Ravi Ravindra who shares fascinating insights from his long experience in the fields of Physics, Self-inquiry and Spirituality; his understanding of the emerging scientific paradigm studying how Consciousness is the ultimate reality; and life-changing teachings he received from his personal relationship with a great sage of our times – Krishnamurti.
Dr. Ravi Ravindra obtained degrees of B.Sc. and M. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, before going to Canada on a Commonwealth Scholarship to do an M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Toronto. Later, he did an M.A. in Philosophy also, and at different times held Post-doctoral fellowships in Physics (University of Toronto), History and Philosophy of Science (Princeton University) and in Religion (Columbia University). He is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University in Halifax (Canada) where he served as a Professor in the departments of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and of Physics. He is an Honorary Member of the Scientific and Medical Network & a Fellow of the Temenos Academy, England. Ravi’s spiritual search led him to the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, G. I. Gurdjieff, Zen, Yoga, and a deep immersion in the mystical teachings of the Indian and Christian classical traditions. His latest book “Blessed by Mysterious Grace: The Journey of a Pilgrim” Ravi describes how he has been blessed with a lot of time, attention and energy given by many exalted personages such as Krishnamurti, Jeanne de Salzmnann and some other people responsible for the Gurdjieff teaching.
QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE
Self Awareness is the mechanism of self-transformation.
The more impartially and deeply I look at myself – essentially more freedom, more freedom from ‘me, me me”!
The fundamental assumption has been that ultimate reality is matter, and that gradually, somehow, consciousness has evolved or developed. That is what is partially being questioned by the Galileo Commission – exploring how the ultimate reality is consciousness. The point is to become not only more intelligent scientists, changing the one or the other assumption, but how can we have wiser scientists who themselves become more compassionate, more loving.
If consciousness and not matter is the ultimate reality, when we recognize this, which may take a hundred years or five hundred years, then Physics will become a branch of psychology – rather than the other way round. This will be a very radical shift.
A wise scientist needs to begin with an honest self-inquiry and how he can become more and more free of self-achievement. To increasingly assist oneself and to connect with spiritual energies.
There is Intelligence Beyond Thought; a subtler kind of intelligence. There are many layers of reality subtler than the mind. Mind cannot grasp that; but that doesn’t mean we have to be against the mind. A scientist sees through a telescope, but the telescope is not the seer. But you can have a good telescope or a bad telescope. Mind is not the real knower, but you can have a good or a bad mind. How to cleanse our mind – which basically means how to quieten our mind – I use this example from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, so the mind can become like a completely clear diamond that doesn’t introduce its own color on something it looks at. It just looks at it completely objectively – whatever it looks at – that’s the call.
