My Journey

"I travel not to reach somewhere but to get to know myself"

I have embarked on this remarkable journey, again. It all started about 8 years back in the small town of Trivandrum, Kerala. I got my hands on a small book called "The dancing Wu-Lii masters". I was an ardent reader and I would read anything that could be read. I just did not have enough money to buy lot of books. A friend of mine lend me this wonderful book as my last mystery thriller was over and I asked everyone for any books. Her grandfather was a physicist and used to read this. I was fascinated by the book, by anomalies in Quantum physics, by Einstein and his theories. I was amazed by these simple unexplanable facts of physics
1. Bells Theorem, proof of ERP (Einstein, Rosen, Podolsky) effect - Imagine, two particles, which were once together maybe seperated large distances, across the globe and still when spin of one is changed the other one instantly changes spin. Who tells this particle that its twin has been changed.
2. Dual Particle nature of light - Light can act as a particle and a wave, we all know that. Imagine, the very act of you observing makes it act as a particle. Observer changes reality. (read my other article "Each Soul has the potential of being divine")

I was indeed spellbound with the fact that if the world was as described by atomic physics, why did anyone not tell me so earlier.

Most of the people in this world like to live in a material world worrying about day to day life. It is said "Ignorance is bliss". Indeed. What should I say about anyone else, I forgot all about my thoughts and wonders of the world to start living a very normal successful life. Got to a different country, joined a very reputed firm, Accenture. Started working towards my career, marriage, bought a nice big house, an expensive second car. Until recently when my mind woke up. I was reading about some new age saints, Deepak Chopra and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. They referred to Quantum physics for some answers in a chat transcript and all came back to me.

I am very delighted and happy that I did not loose any more than four or five years. This is what Hindu's call 'Maya-Moh', the desires and attachment to the material world. It is said, this blinds all. Very true. In Trivandrum, I was mad at the world that no one ever told me about the wonders of particle physics, about "Spooky action at a distance" phenomena observed by Einstein.

Now, should I be mad at myself for not telling myself something I knew for the last 4 years?

Thus came 'My digital Manifestation of my physical self"

- Shantanu Nigam

Potential

Swami Vivekananda said - "Each soul is potentially divine"

Just like each electron is potentially a particle or a wave. It is the observer (the act of observation) that determines its state. Similarly for each soul the observer, which is all the people you interact with determine its divine(ss).

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Shantanu Nigam

Gravity to God

A child looks up in the sky, sees stars, finds their twinkling astonishing. It was a beginners mind, which Newton seemed to posses to come up with the theory of gravity. Newton arrived at the theory of gravity not by going through equations, running through formulae, it was a beginners mind in him which made him think and ask himself - Why? The child in him forced him not to follow his common sense and education and to have the strength to say, against the whole world, "Why?" The result was a theory, which dominated mankind for more than three centuries.

It took the same beginners mind, which, scientists seem to posses, to apply Newton's law to the stars to find out why they are there, since when, how far, etc etc. To their astonishment they found that if the stars followed Newton's law then all should have collapsed at the center of the universe. It was suggested by some that maybe the universe is infinite so every point is the center, so the stars are also stable. If the universe was infinite, then every line of vision should end up in a star - right? Although we all know that is not the case. Then it was suggested that, maybe the stars are so far that the light from them has not yet reached us as yet or that it gets absorbed, considering the latter to be true, then the whole of universe should have been as bright as a sun, even at night, thus we reason out that light has not reached us as yet.

But then if light hasn't reached us as "yet", it must have been triggered long time back, at some finite time. When? By whom? And why?

Then Hubble came up with a startling discovery that the universe is expanding, so all the other things were explained, i.e. why stars do not collapse, because of the relative motion in which all are getting away from each other like points on a surface of an inflating balloon. this brings up the question, if everything is expanding and getting away from each other, it means that at some finite time ago it all must have been at a common point.

Then how and why did it start to expand, how was it triggered with such enormous energy? Thus came the concept of someone or something who was not part of this universe and who was capable of providing a trigger with such immense energies to give us the shape we have now.

-Shantanu Nigam

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at a three minute presentation at Tata's education and training center, Trivandrum.

A Prayer

"I do not ask God to forgive me for my sins, if I have committed something wrong I deserve to be punished, I ask God to give me the strength not to commit it again."

I have never understood the concept and it surprises me how people across so many cultures for ages have been asking 'god to forgive them', which is so wrong. Its mean that they beg for being not punished, while they know they deserve it. Why? Because they are afraid of it. They should realise if at all they have wronged, they should take the punishment gracefully. If they feel sorry for their actions they should not ask to be "not punished", they should just ask to have the strength to not do it ever again.

Shantanu

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Above picture and more similar pictures at http://www.pbase.com/shantanu

My photo album

my digital manifestation of my physical self : http://www.pbase.com/shantanu