Monday, 21 October 2024

QOI X QNG

 SAGAN 

“I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and I was a street kid. There was one aspect of that environment that, for some reason, struck me as different, and that was the stars. … I could tell they were lights in the sky, but that wasn’t an explanation. I mean, what were they? Little electric bulbs on long black wires, so you couldn’t see what they were held up by? What were they? … My mother said to me, “Look, we’ve just got you a library card … get out a book and find the answer.” … It was in there. It was stunning. The answer was that the Sun was a star, except very far away. … The dazzling idea of a universe vast beyond imagining swept over me. … I sensed awe.”

A

The oldest prayers of Hindu culture included questions of a uniquely philosophical nature. One poem from around 800 BCE lamented: ‘What thing I am, I know not clearly,’ and another demanded to know:

Why were we born? By what do we live? On what are we established? Governed by what… do we live…?

The rise of systematic philosophy offered a solution. Those who used induction (the process of generalising new information and abstract principles from the visible world) and deduction (discovering unseen truths hidden within our existing knowledge) came to be seen as rishis or seers, with a unique power to look into the heart of reality. The Mundaka Upanishad tells us that the mind is an arrow able to send thought deep into the imperishable nature of reality – ‘Strike it!’ the author says.

A



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