[Advaita-l] idaM na mama - The scientific evidence?

[Satish Arigela]

Dear Yaduji,

I am making a generic post, and it is not directed at you but intended for 
people who look for scientific proofs for these things

>Can you please post the details abut the yaj~na you have mentioned if they are 
>available?

Sriram of-course will say about this. 

I am well aware of the class of people who want scientific evidence for these 
things. But know that you will never get it- read through.

The following might look a little abstract or it might look non-coherent or 
sound like non-sense(In which case i probably did a poor job trying to express 
what my familiarity with ritual specialists showed/taught me)

>Can you comment of reproducibility, specificity. precision of this methodology 
>of this yaj~na?

Yes it is definitely reproducible **if** you can generate similar conditions and 
that is exactly why you cannot. Let us get into a little "experimental detail" 
here taking this example on how impractical it is to generate similar 
conditions. The intention (and its intensity) of the one who is performing the 
prayoga is very important along with his mantra siddhi.
In this example, can you generate a famine(so that it creates that compassion in 
the ritualist to agree to perform the yAga)) which would make the 
mAntrika/mantrin make a resolve in exactly the same manner as it happened in the 
mentioned incident.

Even if it is possible to do that .. can one imagine the consequences of calling 
in the devata-s(nature forces) to make it rain just to test them? Does this even 
make any sense? What will happen if the mantrin knows(or somehow senses - mind 
you most educated mantrins will know if a trick like this is being played) that 
a famine is created to test his ability..the mantrin's intent is immediately 
lost..no?. And Intent is an important ingredient here if you want to look at 
this whole affair like an experiment in Chemistry.

>Is there any documentation that can validate this?

First, what does one need this for? To publish in a "peer reviewed scientific 
journal"?
Second, one might be able to document this but never validate it through 
scientific means - see below why.

There are incidents where a few uncurable diseases are cured by performing homa 
with specific oblations** with a specific mantra. These are repeatable for sure 
again under similar conditions for sure. The moment we intend to make a 
scientific evaluation of this process, and so for this purpose let us say we 
create an environment to make a double blind test, your intent to evaluate this 
or measure this is already ensuring that(or changing ) the conditions under 
which this is repeatable*.. and this is exactly why I said you will never get 
scientific evidence for these things.. even though they are reproducible n 
number of times.

Finally, only a highly accomplished mantrin with thorough knowledge of the 
ritual system he employs can tell whether the disease was cured because of 1) 
purely the effect of the mantra 2) The mantra prayoga failed but the medicinal 
herbs used in the rites cured it 3) Or nothing worked but it got cured by a 
stroke of luck. Most mantrins(atleast those who studied under traditional 
teachers) are not un-intellectual superstitious duds, yes they can make this 
distinction... if you interact with them you will discover that.


[*This is undoubtedly a poor comparison or of limited relevancy but for lack of 
a better example....think of this in terms of Heisenberg's uncertainty 
principle]


[** Let us not get pseudo-scientific here and make wild guesses here saying that 
the medicinal properties of the materials used in the homa healed the patient 
and that the mantra had nothing to do with it. This is because those with 
greater/higher siddhi in the mantra, do not need to perform homa with those 
specific twigs and herbs but mere japa can cure. The statement of the 
medicinal/Ayurvedic work by name bhelA saMhita can be taken here where it is 
said that in earlier times diseases were cured by employing only mantra-s itself 
without needing herbs and since curing with mantra-s require specific niyama-s 
to be observed by the mAntrika, the non-observation of which might render the 
curing through purely mAntric process, herbs should be used. The textual 
statement apart, closely observing accomplished mantrin-s shows that this indeed 
is the case.]

Hopefully I made some/little sense?

Regards