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Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on October 7, 2011 at 12:10am

I couldn't agree more.

In early 80's I attended one discourse by Swami Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON in Mumbai. He spoke that by not following the path shown by Krishna, one may be punished to be born as an animal. I got up and asked how does he think that animals are not a better species than us. For all we know they may be laughing at us from inside. I was shouted down and removed from the hall by his supporters.

Ever since the advent of internet, I always thought that the connectivity of all human beings is just round the corner. It will initially be based on the hardware, but later will progress to either DNA altering itself or by synthetic means. A demostrable proof is perhaps now available.

But more importantly, here we need to discuss the social, political and cultural impact of such technological progress and how to guide these devlopments to minimize the few unpleasnt experiences during the transition that are bound to occur. 

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Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on October 7, 2011 at 1:03am

Fascinatingly true staement, Joe. Indeed one needs to acknowledge the contribution of so many great spiritual explorers who shaped our thinking and provided dircetion to the humanity. Even if we find a few errors today, one needs to look at the whole picture and seek inspiration from that.

 

I would only like to add, that apart from theoretical exploration of spirituality, we need to somehow look at the practical applications as well, in regard to tackling the various challenges being faced by the humanity. For example, the problem of greed and corruption (behind majority of the problems in the world today including environmental) can only be tackled at the spiritual level and not by legislation or education alone. One wishes that the inheritors of the spiritual mantle will look into that too.

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