The Annual Rainbow Lecture on "A New Kosmology"

-Report by Aujas Sohal 

-Photographs by Abhishek Sharma

Sophia Club recently organized its ‘Annual Rainbow Lecture’ which was held on the 21^st of November and HOD, Dept. of Arts, Prof. Dr. Anthony Savari Raj came in as the guest lecturer.

After a quick introduction by a fellow sophian, Anthony sir began his lecture with a French quote, the heart has reason which the reason does not know, as always drawing everybody’s attention with a single line. Sir started the lecture with a note of thanks to everybody who had welcomed him and made this occasion possible.

There is an increasing realization that today’s dominant scientific cosmology is just one particular Cosmo vision that puts the emphasis on a quantifiable vision within a mechanical conception of the universe.

We know, however, that not all epistemology is “scientific”; not all cognition is measurable; not all knowledge is covered by “Science.”  Modern Science cannot be said to know the world or to have penetrated the nature of Reality.  Though it is through the techno-science, the economic and other developments and expansion have come about in the western societies, yet modern-day western scientific culture is not the only scientific culture possible even in the West.

Furthermore, its suppositions are neither neutral nor universal and they do not fully represent or exhaust the universal range of human experience. Each culture has its own sense of the cosmos and the cosmos speaks differently to different cultures. This brings to awareness the contemporary experience of the “conflict of cosmologies.”

It is in this context, the speaker introduced the intercultural philosopher Raimon Panikkar’s new “Kosmology” (with K, not C).   Kosmology is the disclosure and holistic sense of the kosmos by means of all forms of knowledge we possess. It indeed invites us to experience the universe not as a mechanical or sophisticated organization, but as a living organism which requires a holistic and creative participation, assisted by an intercultural vision and collaboration.

The cosmological vision which we follow to date, has proven to be very important and of an exquisite nature, too important to remove from our lives. Dependence on old traditions is important but it needs to go hand in hand with the current modern world. There have been many signs of a new cosmological view that is taking form in the eyes of people. Religion is becoming a meaningless hypothesis, because it is unable to adapt to the secular issues that are present today. This calls in for a new view, a view of a mixture of technology and art, a technicultural view.

Techniculture is that dimension which ties us with the beautiful things around us and adapts itself according to the modern culture. ‘Nature is written in a mathematical language’ a quote given in regard to nature indicating that everything around us can be discovered and all the riddles found solved like any mathematical problem.

Signs of the new kosmology are many and can be easily found if we look carefully around ourselves; celebration of the body, ability to read the sacred in the secular, worshipping work, individualism, human unity and solidarity, realization that every word in religion arises from the secular and realizing that the world, the God, the man are not three separate realities but are one and are dependent on each other. Seeing all these amazing changes we realize that the entire world is becoming a place for our salvation.

After an amazing lecture which would require even the best of us to open dictionaries again, there was a short Q & A session. Then the vice president of Sophia Club, Sadvansha Munshi gave the vote of thanks and brought the wonderful evening to its conclusion.

All of us learnt new things, things that were around us the entire time and theories that would bogle our minds the entire night. We went back wishing that every evening would be as enlightening as this.