THE MIND & BODY BLOG

W hat we are living through is an unforeseen period. It is a trying time, both mentally and emotionally. Given the circumstances, it is natural to look for a de-stressing mechanism or turn toward spirituality. The ways in which we choose to do so may be different, but the end goal takes us through the route of ‘consciousness.’  To talk about consciousness is like opening a Pandora’s Box. Generally speaking, it would translate into ‘awareness’, but from a neurological point of view, consciousness would be the state of awareness of the self, environment, and one’s responsiveness to external stimuli and internal needs.  By the neurological benchmark, consciousness has two components — level of consciousness and the content of consciousness, the latter determining the spectrum of enlightenment of an individual. The level of consciousness defines the degree of variation from normal alertness, while the content of consciousness is defined by the quality and coherence of th...

While man was busy conquering nature with his newly acquired powers of biotechnology and information technology, nature decided to test his unchallenged reign of supremacy. The origin of corona virus remains shrouded in mystery, but philosophically it could be looked at as a war against human arrogance and his excesses. This is not the first time when mankind is faced with a threat that has blown into an existential crisis. In ancient India, saints like Augusta and Vishwamitra, armed with their meditative powers and intrinsic wisdom drawn from being one with the universe, had stepped in to save humanity from evil. Many present-day Babas (gurus), on the other hand, are in jail and those with market value are engaged in increasing their ratings by becoming psychotherapists on the electronic media. Incidentally, holy shrines across the world are now closed to believers. The priests with their deities in closed temples are following the advice of the scientists and call of the le...

Despite best efforts across the world, the threat posed by Corona virus remains unabated. Despite different approaches by the policy makers, the results so far are a mixed bag of successes and failures where humankind is still trying to catchup with the virulent pandemic. Lockdown, which several countries have now adopted, and in some, ruthlessly enforced, was considered to be a panacea by all but cases continue to rise in spite of this unprecedented measure. The lockdown might have produced relative benefits but paradoxically countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka without lockdown measures have not fared any badly. This brings us to the same question again and again: Are we doing enough by imposing lockdown at the cost of larger and individual economic hardship?And, if not, what is the alternative? Let us accept the lockdown gave us confidence and time to build on our resources and re-strategise. In the current scenario we are not certain at which stage the disease...

While we are all closely following how science is growing rapidly and its outreach is expanding exponentially, the proportionate and unprecedented rise in superstition and pathological beliefs within the ecosystem of religion has somehow escaped our notice. Futurist Alvin Toffler, in his book ‘Future Shock’ had forecast a gradual change in human and social behaviour in the form of death of permanence, death of reliability and the demise of bureaucracy. He was recording his observations in the context of nations changing over from a controlled economy to free economy. Is it, therefore, possible what Toffler wrote could finally be coming true? And, if at all it is happening, the transformation of his vision into reality is turning out to be much quicker and larger than one would have imagined. Science is on the verge of producing human clones and robots with human-like intelligence. Developments in stem-cell and genetic research are all set to produce miracle cures making man’s...