Hawking146;s question, Dr Kalam146;s answer

Man8217;s knowledge of, and mastery over, his outer reality has grown enormously. However, this progress has happened along with regression in his knowledge of, and mastery over, his inner reality

In this column last week, I wrote an appreciation of the President8217;s address to the nation on the eve of Independence Day. Among other things, it raised some mega-concerns that our leaders rarely articulate. Example: What kind of education is needed to effect 8216;8216;a profound change in the consciousness of mankind8217;8217;? In the same speech, he had referred to another mega-concern, voiced by the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking: With so many natural and man-made disasters facing planet Earth, 8216;8216;how can the human race survive the next hundred years?8217;8217;. After the scientist delivered a speech on this theme in Hong Kong in June, it8217;s become one of the most hotly debated questions on the Internet. Let8217;s hear Dr Kalam8217;s response: 8216;8216;When Hawking received well over 20,000 mixed responses on e-mail, he admitted that he does not have an answer. You have heard me today on the eve of the 60th Independence Day. I am sure that you share my strong belief that with the strength of our youth and our civilisational heritage we can together find an answer.8217;8217;

Notice not only the faith he has reposed in our youth, but also the responsibility he has cast on them. For this very reason, the issue of 8216;The Future of Mankind8217; deserves to be debated in our country on various forums. According to Hawking, the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there8217;s an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth. The potential disasters: 8216;8216;Sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.8217;8217; He added that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.

In all humility, I disagree with the scientist. The dangers to life on our planet are, of course, real. Also, humans8217; ability to identify and reach habitable places in the outer space, at some point in the future, cannot be doubted. After all, as we have seen in the past, what man imagines, science delivers. But space settlements need not happen because we have failed to save our planet from a catastrophe. May they happen not as an act of escapism but as an extension of the positive chain of marvellous human accomplishments on this planet. And nothing can qualify as a greater accomplishment than to reliably ensure the survival of life on Earth. This is where the faith that Dr Kalam has expressed in India8217;s civilisational heritage assumes meaning.

Is there in our civilisational heritage8212;which is a combination of our spiritual, cultural, intellectual and material heritages8212;that which can help accomplish something as challenging as the answer to the question that Hawking has posed? Yes. At the root of this affirmation is the belief that man is not the master of this planet but a child of the Master Creator. Our planet is only one of His infinite creations. The same Creator has also created man with the gift of intellectual, emotional, imaginative, creative, self-knowing and self-transforming abilities. But the purpose of these abilities is not to dominate, fight and kill one another, destroy nature and, in the process, endanger our own future on Earth. No. Rather, it is to develop oneself in peace and harmony with the entire web of creation and reach those higher levels of consciousness that man is truly capable of.

Our ancestors knew this. One of the Shanti Mantras in the Vedas affirms this knowledge: 8216;8216;Om dyauh shaantih, Antariksham shaantih, Prithivee shaantih, Aapah shaantih, Oshadhayah shaantih, Vanaspatayah shaantih, Vishvedevaah shaantih, Brahma shaantih, Sarvam shaantih, Shaantireva shaantih, Saamaa shaantiredhih, Om shaantih, shaantih, shaantih! May peace radiate there in the whole sky as well as in the vast space everywhere. May peace reign all over this earth, in water and in all herbs, trees and creepers. May peace flow over the whole universe. May peace be in the Supreme Being Brahman. And may there always exist in all peace and peace alone.8217;8217;

It is of course obvious that we in India have failed to live up to this enlightened affirmation. Nevertheless, an important insight our civilisation has developed is that man must know, feel secure in, and be at peace with his own inner space for him to be able to experience peace in the outer space. Man8217;s knowledge of, and mastery over, his outer reality has grown enormously in the past few centuries. However, this progress has happened along with regression in his knowledge of, and mastery over, his inner reality8212;his desires, emotions, aspirations, his relationship with fellow humans, and his knowledge of the purpose of his existence which can only come with inward-pointed contemplation.

Hence, in response to the suggestion that Hawking has made about the need to establish human settlements in outer space in order to ensure continued survival of the human race, one can only say that the same purpose would be more reliably served if man could learn to re-discover and inhabit his own inner space. Which means that all of us, belonging to all communities and all countries, should delve deep into the basics of our own religions, our spiritual and cultural heritages, and our ethical systems, and find resources that can help us live in peace, harmony, brotherhood and development of a sustainable and holistic kind. It so happens that Indian civilisation, which has been fertilised by all religions of the world, has more such remedial resources to offer to our troubled world8212;and to itself8212;than perhaps any other. Hence, our Rashtrapati8217;s confidence in it.