LAW OF LOVE AND THE MATHEMATICS OF SPIRITUALITY

The author of this fascinating book has managed to combine his interests in Vedanta (associated with Swami Chinmayananda) with his training in mathematics in a single volume. The three parts present the Vedantic vision of creation, a mathematical representation of spiritual progress and an account of Vedanta's answer to life's persistent questions. At the beginning of the book, he recounts an incident with the great Indian philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who was then vice president of India. He asked about the historic stand-off between science and religion, which elicited the memorable one-liner: 'a little bit of science takes you away from religion – a little bit more of it will bring you right back to it.' The author asks if spirituality, like science, can be evidence-based, and his answer is that it can be intelligently pursued, rationally understood and experienced here and now.

He draws significant distinctions between spirituality and religion, illustrating his argument with a layered diagram with core spiritual truths at the centre and theology, mythology, sacraments and institutions further out. This enables him to map the spiritual journey as one from ignorance to perfect knowledge through worldly experience. The next chapter explains in some detail the basic terminology and worldview of Vedanta, from which he derives his own model of the person or jiva and our spiritual evolution towards liberation. He brings in an important distinction between eating (bhoga) and witnessing (yoga), corresponding to the bird that eats and the one who watches the process. Progress is one in knowledge and goodness leading to detachment and unconditional love. He discusses the logic of Vedanta in relation to the modern science of consciousness, also drawing parallels with the work of Amit Goswami.

This leads into the second, mathematical part beginning with a list of mathematical symbols used. Jiva is the experiencer and the experienced is the world of objects, emotions and thoughts, with t as this experienced world at time t where the symbol M stands for the whole field of experiences. He then introduces an important graphical representation with the horizontal axis of spiritual detachment (θ) standing for zero while the vertical indicates the maximum attainment or π/2. This puts the eating bird on the horizontal axis and the witnessing bird on the vertical, thus enabling the author to chart the progress curve of a jiva through time as progressing towards full attainment and realisation, which is also an embodiment of love (pp. 103, 117) and a realisation of the oneness of being. The author finds a correspondence between the language of Vedanta and modern physics, which he also illustrates graphically, relating it to the idea of accumulated merit in time. There is then a technical chapter on Sri Ramana's principle of personal will, a theme to which the author returns later.

A separate but related approach is the theory of Vasanas or tendencies where the spectrum ranges from tamas through rajas to sattva and tattva of self-realisation. He formulates this as a Vasana function V(x,t) where the vertical axis is the intensity V of Vasana x and the horizontal represents the Vasana spectrum. Also referring to the chakras of kundalini yoga, the author specifies that the intensity of a Vasana can be thought of as the frequency or (energetic) rate of vibration either of a chakra or a particular Vasana. Various perturbations can influence the position of the jiva on this spectrum, but the underlying idea is to gain sufficient control of the mind to move into a sattvic state. Suffering is inevitable and the way in which one addresses it will depend upon where one is on the Vasana spectrum. The sattvic where is increasing detachment, but the nature of this path will depend upon whether the jiva focuses most on the yoga of jnana (wisdom), bhakti (love) or karma (action); in all cases, the end is service.

A discussion of time brings the subject background to free will in the light of the assertion of modern physics that distinctions between past, present and future are an illusion. He argues that jivas 'only experience what already exists and can do nothing "now" that has not "already" been done.' I take this as the viewpoint of the witness in a state of non-duality. However, one should also note that Prigogine fundamentally challenged this understanding of physics with his work on nonlinear dynamics in relation to evolution. For the author, however, all states and experiences are already inscribed on the Cosmic Mind (M) like a CD. This is the Ramana Maharshi view that there is ultimately only one experiencer, which is hard to fathom from the angle of a separate ego.

The third part discusses Vedanta's answers to 8 conundrums relating to the nature of the world, evil, choice, love, action and the nature of problems in this Life (Limitless Incessant Flow of Experience). The author gives his own answers to these basic questions of life and the Cosmic Play of Isvara, asserting that the ultimate purpose of life is spiritual growth, and more especially the embodiment of love, which allows him a final mathematical formulation from E to F - empty the mind of thoughts leading to worldly attachment and fill the heart with universal love based on knowledge. He adds a few thoughts on the potential application of love to modern life, a topic extensively covered in the work of Charles Eisenstein. He advocates both research into an education in spirituality, which is already occurring, although much of what is taught in schools is comparative religion rather than the practice of spirituality. I can't say that I followed all the mathematical intricacies in the second part of the book (mathematicians will gain a great deal more than me from this section) but I deeply appreciated the overall thrust of the book in reconciling science and spirituality with an emphasis on the personal development of wisdom and love.