Swami Atmapriyananda Maharaj Pro-Chancellor, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Belur Math talked about, Saving Challenge of Spirituality in the modern age of Science and Reason, during lecture at IIT (ISM) here today.
Swami Atmapriyananda Maharaj Pro-Chancellor, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Belur Math who is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order, a spiritual leader, an educationist, talked about all this much while delivering lecture on "The Saving Challenge of Spirituality in the Modern Age of Science and Reason" as part of National Science Day Lecture Series being organized by Department of Physics of the institute, informed Rajni Singh, dean media and branding.
He also discussed the science unification through Vedanta and Upanishads and said that there are several classes of matter in science, and elaborated that the classification is as; sorrow (dukhhatraya),bodies (sarira-traya), human aspirations (chaturvidha-purusharthas), selves (pancha-atma or pancha-koshas), obstacles (pancha-kleshas), and various others. He related the symmetry in science to "sundaram" and invariance in physics to "nityam, saswatam". He further discussed four fundamental quests in Upanishads that are in tune with modern science. The first quest is the quest for unity, the second one is the quest for the continuum of matter-life-mind-consciousness, the third one is the quest for the infinite, and the fourth quest is the quest for great power (MahaShakti) that is working through nature. There was a brief interactive session between Swami Atmapriyananda Maharaj and the audience consisting of students and faculty members where some intricacies associated with human life were deliberated.
Swami Atmapriyananda received his Ph.D. from the University of Madras in Theoretical Physics. He served as Vice Principal and Principal of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math for 19 years. He served as the first Vice-Chancellor of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RKMVERI, a Deemed University) at Belur Math for more than 15 years.
Currently, he is the Pro-Chancellor of RKMVERI. He was awarded D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) by the IIT Kharagpur, and D Litt. (Honoris Causa) by the Central University of Assam for his outstanding achievements in the field of education and service to society.
