Sunday, September 9, 2007

Buddha Boy Ram Bomjon

Its been some time since the media picked up the story of Ram Bomjon ... He who sat in meditation, not eating for 10 months ... A hoax is what most of the people who follow this call it. And, the credulous ones really believe him to be an incarnation of the Buddha. So, what are the facts? I know not ...

Discovery Channel is running a program titled Looking for India (ya, ya, they need a star to come down from England to look for India ... never was there anyone in India who would be looking for her!). They were covering the Buddha Boy story. Interesting observation ... They observed the boy on camera for 48 hours. All they did was sit there, with their camera, and film the boy on camera ...

Incredible ... He didnt eat or drink for 48 hours. How did he survive ... I dont even claim to know. But, this would definitely be something worth delving into. This is not to say that this necessarily has to do with the Divine (though I would think it does), the point I am trying to make here is that there are always things which cannot be explained by the current state of knowledge. I dont not mention scientific knowledge, because I would much rather look at knowledge of the world in its larger sense.

I think there are large parts of the spiritual world which cannot be, by definition, observed or explained by the scientific method. This doesnt take anything away from the current state of the scientific method. Rather, all it does is acknowledge the fact that there are limitations ... As has been famously demonstrated by Werner Heisenberg in his famous Uncertainty Principle. That there are scenarios where the very act of observation disturbs whatever is being observed.

2 comments:

Dr. Ordinary said...

http://groups.google.com/group/buddhaboy

Atul said...

Thanks a lot, Brad. The video pointed to by Lyndon is indeed very nice. While yes, there are a lot of pauses in the video, I would look at it this way ... An athelete at the end of a race would pause a lot between words, and that doesnt require any editing.

The larger point ... That there is a lot which is beyond the senses. Check out the page on Lahiri Mahasaya at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahiri_Mahasaya

Hope you find this interesting read.