The Role of Karma in Shaping Moral Norms

Religion, Philosophy

Date : Sept., 2020

Source : ScienceDirect

More than one billion of people subscribe worldwide to the concept of Karma. A new study analyzed the consequences in terms of moral and social behaviors, compared to non-karma related religious groups like Christians. It suggests that religious beliefs impact how we think about moral norms and that, for example, different religious beliefs promote different generosity norms.

Mme Blavatsky wrote (The Key to Theosophy, 1889) : ” We consider Karma as the Ultimate Law of the Universe, the source, origin and fount of all other laws which exist throughout Nature. Karma is the unerring law which adjusts effect to cause, on the physical, mental and spiritual planes of beings. As no cause remains without its due effect from greatest to least, from a cosmic disturbance down to the movement of your hand, and as like produces like, Karma is that unseen and unknown law which adjusts wisely, intelligently and equitably each effect to its cause, tracing the latter back to its producer. Though itself unknowable, its action is perceivable.

Read more : ScienceDirect

Mysteries in Science and in Religion

Religion, Philosophy

Source : ScienceDirect

Date : Nov., 2020

Science and Religions both offer explanations for the world and for human experience. When an observation in Science or a dogma in Religion cannot be explained by reason, it is called “a mystery”; and Science and Religion are differentially tolerant of absent explanations.

A recent published paper proposes a comparative analysis of both approaches. The study concludes that: “In Science, unanswered questions are judged to stand in need of explanation, while in religion, participants are often content to leave unanswered questions as mysteries.”

Read more : ScienceDirect

Religion and Science in the East

Religion, Philosophy

Source : MDPI – Religions

Date : Aug., 2020

Philosophers and scientists have been discussing opposition and intersection between Religion and Science domains for centuries. An anthropologist and ethnographer studied the relationships between the two, using the example of space science and its correlation with Japanese Buddhism. He reached the conclusion that tension or conflict between Science and Religion is a product of Western academic practices, linked to monotheistic religions. This conclusion is not assumed in Japanese discourses on the world. In that Tradition, Buddhism and Science are considered fundamentally compatible, our world being understood in terms of causal relationships and interconnectedness. In that context, potential for extra-terrestrial life is not considered adversarial to Religion.

Read more : MDPI-Religions

Magnetism – A Cosmic Web

Physics, Space Sciences

Source : Quanta Magazine

Date : July 2020

Magnetic fields are present in our Universe, wherever we look at, on the Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way, clusters of galaxies, . . . and even in the interstellar void, connecting clusters of galaxies via gigantic filaments. The origin of these force fields is still unknown. One possibility could be that it was created at the (re)birth of our Universe. Therefore, it would be considered as primordial. Such an hypothesis could explain the current accelerated expansion of the visible Universe. Magnetism, together with gravity are the forces shaping out the large-structure of the cosmos.

Read more : Quantas Magazine, ScienceMag, SSRG, arXiv

The Big Bang Theory : An Origin or Not ?

Physics, Space Sciences

Source : Quanta Magazine

Date : June 2019

The debate around the Big Bang Theory is still very active, due to many unresolved problems around it. Some cosmologists, including Alan Guth and Stephen Hawking have proposed (1981 – Vatican Conference) that there is no end nor beginning at all. The no-boundary proposal (1983 J. B. Hartle and S. W. Hawking paper) describes the universe expanding from a point of zero size. In a recent lecture (S.W. Hawking 2016), Stephen Hawking explained why we cannot talk about ‘Before the Big Bang’ : because, at this time, there is no time ; time cease to exist and is replaced by pure space.

This is one of the most striking parallel with the Wisdom Tradition Teachings : Describing the phase before the (re)creation of the Universe, The Secret Doctrine (Cosmogenesis, Stanza I.2) says : “Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of duration“. This is correlated by the Rig-Veda Book X (verse 10.129.2 – creation) : “Then was neither death nor life, nor any sign of night and day“. Here, the key idea is time (kâla). The Rig Veda states that the first step in the creation is not time.

Read more : Quanta Magazine

Vast Unidentified Structures Near Earth’s Core

Earth Sciences

Source : Vice

Date : June 2020

Using new AI technology – a manifold learning algorithm – a seismologist and another scientist discovered large structures of dense material lying at the boundary between Earth’s core and the lower mantle. These dense patches were located below the Pacific ocean, under Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands. They could be stretching 1,000 kilometers long in a zone 3,000 kilometers below the surface.

These are very deep and ancient structures that date back to a time before the earth had a moon. They may not be relevant to questions of human history.

Read more : Vice

The Genesis of our Moon

Space Sciences

Source : Science Alert

Date : May 2020

New observations of particles emitted from the surface of the moon raise doubts about the mainstream creation model , i.e. a collision between a large body and the Earth. A steady stream of particles (carbon ions) from the entire surface of the moon seems to indicate the moon could not have been created by a collision sometime in the early age of the solar system. The lunar impact formation model may need some revision. Another theory – Michael Woolfson, 2015 – considers the moon as one of the celestial bodies generated together with the earth at the early stages of the solar system creation.

Mme Blavatsky wrote (Collected Writings XIV, p. 142) : “The Theosophists, who alone will be able to take in the meaning, may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of the Seventh Principle of our Planetary System, while the Moon is its Fourth Principle, shining in the borrowed robes of her master, saturated with and reflecting every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly material body, Earth.

Read more : Science Alert, Science Advances, Michael Woolfson

An Unknown Form of Neural Communication

Biology, Medicine

Source : Science Alert

Date : May 2020

Communication between the neurons – the elementary cells of the brain – has been conventionally understood, using mechanisms as synaptic transmission, axonal transport, etc. A team of scientists has identified a new, unknown process of neural communication which seems to leap wirelessly from neurons – even when they are severed. The transportation medium may be a set of electromagnetic waves which have been identified to be active during sleep in the cortex and the hippocampus. It looks like new science.

Read more : Science Alert , The Journal of Physiology

Sevenfoldness in Mathematics

Mathematics

Source : Reader’s Article

Date : April 2020

If the Secret doctrine was published in 1888, a few years later, in 1892 Gino Fano an Italian mathematician published the article “Sui postulati fondamentali della geometria proiettiva“. The article was dedicated to finite projective spaces. Fano came to the concept of finite space that is now known as Fano planes. In this space, all the planes consist of seven points and seven lines. The Fano plane is the smallest possible example of a projective plane. It has exactly seven points that lie on seven lines. In modern math, the Fano plane is an example of a finite incidence structure, so many of its properties can be established using combinatorial techniques and other tools used in the study of incidence geometries and algebra.

The picture of Fano Plane demonstrates how close such concept to Secret Doctrine’s 7 principles numbering.

The analogy between 7 principles and 7 globes of SD exhibit further deep similarity so further analysis of such analogy can be done by the reader himself.

Read more : Wikipedia

The Amritasiddhi – A Hathayoga Source Text

Religion, Parapsychology

Source : University of Virginia

Date : March 2020

The Amritasiddhi, an Ancient Indian Tradition text from the 11th-12th century, is presenting the occult physiology of man, and practices to enhance longevity.

This study paper highlights similar teachings in the later Buddhist Tradition (Vajrayana), specially linked to the Esoteric Buddhism as embodied in the Kalachakra Tradition.

Subtle centers – Chakras, subtle energies – Pranas, and subtle drops – Bindus, are the main components of this Eastern alchemy which leads the Buddhist disciple to the awakening and finally to the perfected state – Mahamudra.

Read more : MDPI

Lithopanspermia : Interplanetary Transmission of Life

Biology, Earth Sciences, Space Sciences

Source : arXiv.org

Date : Feb 2020

The theory of lithopanspermia proposes the natural exchange of organisms between solar system bodies through meteorites. This has become recently an active field of researches. This paper, based on latest findings from over 62,000 meteorites found on earth (The Meteoritical Society, 2020) describes the complete process of biological organisms transport back-and-forth between the Earth and Mars.

Read more : arXiv.org

Anaximene : The Principle of the World

Philosophy

Source : De Gruyter

Date : Feb 2020

The last Milesian philosopher, Anaximenes (585-525 BC) described the cosmology of the earth as emerging from what he called “Air” which can also be interpreted as “damp dark mist”. Earth was formed from it by “condensation”. This cosmogonic model is similar to the one proposed by one of his predecessor, Anaximandres (610- 546 BC) who said that “the Unlimited is the Principle and the Element of things which are. The nature of this Principle is to be moving and eternal. This article is analyzing the Anaximenes thought regarding this principle.

The Secret Doctrine (Proem, p.14) describes the One Absolute Reality as Absolute Abstract Space and Absolute Abstract Motion.

Read more : De Gruyter

Practical Philosophy of Education

Education, Philosophy

Source : SHS Web of Conferences

Date : 2020

The nineteenth century was a period of great achievement, but it failed to produce men of learning with a sensitive appreciation of varieties of interest and potentialities . . . and the situation has not changed in the 21st century.”

Quoting A. Whitehead and others philosophers, the author of this article elaborate on the principle of understanding to introduce the ecological culture in education as the ethics of conservation. He concluded by saying : “The diversity and unity of the world are not limited to the empirical sphere – the sphere of the visible.”

Read more : SHS

Large Numbers Numerical Coincidences

Physics, Space Sciences

Source : Reader’s Contribution

Date : Jan. 2020

The values of the physical “constants”, like G, the Newtonian gravitational constant, or h, the Plank constant, or c, the speed limit of light, are still shrouded in mystery. Why do they have such a value ? Gilles Cohen-Tannoudji, one of the leading particles physicist, said that ” the universal constants express the inherent limitations of human knowledge.”

One of our reader has published a paper proposing a set of new hypothesis, as a continuation of Dirac’s and Eddington’s Large Number Hypothesis, linking constants and numbers. In that analysis, all the found relations have a common nature of the “power-of-two”. Such correlations provide with accurate calculation/prediction of some constants and measurements.

He wrote some additional comments : “Beside sevenfoldness, the proposed hypothesis has another interesting property that supports the thought of Mme Blavatsky (H.P.B.) on the existence of key-note in Nature which was mentioned by her in The Voice of the Silence – Glossary to Part, III, The seven Portals, 10, p. 89. : she gives Note F as the keynote of Nature. If one calculates exactly 68 octaves up from the Hubble constant given by the article’s expression, then the result is 673.37 Hz which is close to standard note F (698.45 Hz). The same result can be obtained by calculating 60 octaves down from the de Broglie frequency of the electron.

Read more : pp-33-07, ResearchGate

Mothers and Babies Synchronize their Brain Waves

Health & Medicine

Source : NeuroImage

Date : Nov. 2019

A new research, using dual electroencephalography, has recorded simultaneously a mother’s and her baby’s brains activities. It shows that the level of connectivity is linked to the mother’s emotional state. The study found that the parent-infant inter-brain network is strongly modulated by the emotional quality and tone of dyadic social interactions.

Our emotions literally change the way that our brains share information with others – positive emotions help us to communicate in a much more efficient way,” said one of the study’s participant.

Read More : NeuroImage