FROM THE WORLD OF RELIGION

Many factors contribute to the recognition and propagation of a person's ideas. On of these is charisma. Some people have an uncommon power in their personality by which they are able to win the hearts, minds, and attention of countless followers and admirers.

One such personage was Jiddu Krishnamurthi (born: 11 May 1895). When he was 14, he was discovered by the theosophist Annie Besant who declared him to be the Maitreya: the final Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattvas are periodic incarnations of Buddha, as per Mahayana Buddhism.

Thus selected, J. Krishnamurthi founded a World Order of the Star. He was taken on a lecture tour to England and America between 1929 and 1931 where he was acclaimed by many. But at the end of it, he called it quits, and declared he was no incarnation of Buddha, and did not want any disciples. In fact, like most secular intelligent thinkers, he was against the follow-the-leader mentality in matters religious, and went so far as to declare that "to follow another is evil, and it does not matter who it is." This had such an impact on so many people that they became his followers. He said no one had the right interpret his work, so some of his warm admirers began to do just that. But he did allow his talks and dialogues to be widely circulated after his death, and this is being done now.

J. Krishnamurthi maintained that our sense of individuality is a result of our ignorance of our true nature. Every conflict and confusion is cleared as soon as we dispel this ignorance. Ultimate Truth and God are within us, he said. Our life's course is like that of rivers and we ultimately merge with the ocean of infinity. There is a process by which we become more and more acutely aware of our individual consciousness until ultimately it explodes into the totality, and one merges with the Whole: Not very original thoughts perhaps, but effectively articulated.

Indeed, J. Krishnamurti was a very good speaker. He was invited to many countries, and he spoke to audiences not just on spiritual and metaphysical themes. He also discussed the social, political, and environmental ills that societies were facing. He expressed the concerns that all responsible thinkers feel, and called for a change of heart and mind to arrest the violence and chaos that torment the modern world.

He asked rhetorically: "Can the mind be free of this egocentric activity? ... Which means, can the mind stand alone, uninfluenced? ... Being alone does not mean isolation... When one rejects completely all the absurdities of nationality, the absurdities of propaganda, of religious propaganda, rejects conclusions of any kind, actually, not theoretically, completely put aside, has understood very deeply the question of pleasure and fear, and division--the `me' and `not me'--is there any form of the self at all?"

Such reflections impressed countless people, including the eminent and brilliant quantum physicist David Bohm who began an intellectual collaboration with J. Krishnamurti in 1959. They explored the nature of thought in metaphysical rather than in scientific terms. They came to the conclusion that the root cause of all the political and social chaos of the time was our ignorance of how our thought processes occur.

Bohm went on to say: "... we do not see what is actually happening, when we are engaged in the activity of thinking. Through close attention to and observation of this activity of thought, Krishnamurti feels that he directly perceives that thought is a material process, which is going on inside of the human being in the brain and nervous system as a whole."

Every age has its philosophers who discover the root cause of all our ills. It is surorising that even with such an abundance of insights, humanity continues to totter in the same pathetic modes.

FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

Poets describe nature in soothing and inspiring language. Philosophers reflect on the human condition in insightful and meaningful ways. Theoretical physicists formulate the microcosm in mathematical and fruitful equations. Of those who caught the magic of the microcosm with profound and new ways was Richard Feynman (born: 11 May 1918).

When in his mid-twenties Feynman was involved with the Manhattan project. At Cornell he worked out his path-breaking techniques in quantum electrodynamics. When he presented his (second renormalization) theory to the major players in theoretical physics at an exclusive conference in 1948, Niels Bohr is said to have commented that this young man hadn't grasped the basics of quantum mechanics. More than once, Feynman was ignored because others did not understand his revolutionary ideas. But he always persisted, and always won. He took the physics establishment by storm with his ingenious diagrams and their implications, with his path integrals with their powerful computational consequences.

He worked on superfluidity (motion without any friction of liquid helium at temperatures very close to zero degree kelvin), insightfully elucidated the results of deep inelastic scattering, and helped unravel the mystery of weak interactions. He played with flexagons (geometrical figures of several sides and faces constructed by folding a sheet of paper in multiple ways) and recognized what was later re-discovered as intragenic suppression.

But most of all, Feynman's name is indelibly stuck to certain diagrams in microphysics which are transparently illustrative of the processes they describe and also very valuable in doing the associated calculations which are sophisticated in content, and strike those who revel in such matters as sublime modes of penetrating into the deep-down mysteries of the micro-world.

Some brains function in extraordinary ways. Geniuses create great art and music, science and mathematics, open up new pathways for thought and perception, and make revolutionary breakthroughs in our understanding and utilization of the world around us. Such indeed was Feynman. His first love was physics, but he had other interests too: like playing bongo drums and teaching himself Chinese.

Intelligence shines in accepted modes, but genius strays from the trodden track. Feynman was unorthodox in his attitudes and approaches. He was blessed with a razor-sharp mind and an uncanny ability to recognize the core of a problem. He was also a practical joker, delightful speaker, and author of some excellent physics texts. He influenced the course of physics, and also physics courses, contributed substantially to its conceptual framework, and touched the professional and intellectual life of many fellow physicists. He provoked laughter and reflection, the jealousy of some, the wrath of a few, and the admiration of all.

Next to Einstein, and maybe Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman was probably the most widely known physicist of the 20th century. Thanks to his prodigious intellect and eccentricity, his name became a household word among physicists. Since the 1986 Challenger disaster for which he discovered the O-rings as the cause, and the Nova program about him, his fame became even more universal. Whenever he entered a hall with physicists or students, an eerie silence or hushed whispers would ensue. Looks of admiration would result as if a famous movie star had arrived. There was great affection for this unusual man who was honest to the point of being blunt, serious yet jovial, a master of complex calculations, yet also a prankster. Some wondered, half-seriously, if Feynman was a human being.

V. V. Raman

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Published   2002.05.11