Kerala

Combine science and spirituality, says Kalam

Thrikkur (Thrissur dist): Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has said that India’s spiritual message is neither sectarian nor dogmatic. He was inaugurating the birth centenary celebrations of Swami Ranganathananda, former president of the Ramakrishna Mission, at Thrikkur, the monk’s birthplace, near here, on Monday.

“The message focuses on man’s development. It is universal and humanistic. Swami Ranganathananda strove to promote these values,” he said.

He called for research that combined the visions of science and spirituality to unlock the secrets of nature and existence. “It is time we researched into the similarities between Einstein’s Unified Field Theory and Adi Sankara’s interpretation of Brahman in ‘Vivekachoodamani’.”

The Unified Field Theory is a kind of field theory that allows all of the fundamental forces between elementary particles to be written in terms of a single field.

It attempts to combine all known phenomena to explain the nature and behaviour of all existing matter and energy.

He said the litmus test for spiritual growth was whether a person radiated love and peace.

Knowledge, he observed, was a combination of creativity, righteousness and courage. He called upon youth to gather courage to think differently, travel into unexplored paths and discover the impossible.

C. K. Chandrappan, MP, Therambil Ramakrishnan, C. Ravindranath, MLAs, Collector V. K. Babyalso spoke.

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