Illusions by Richard Bach (ISBN 0-440-20488-7)

Illusions is a mystical first person narrative of a lonely biplane pilot, who makes his living by selling air rides for $3 for ten minutes. He gets an imaginary friend and Messiah called Donald Shimoda, with whom he tries to reconcile the preachings of the Bible, the modern physics and the Indian mystic concept of Maya (illusion).
Twice in this narrative the imagery of this imaginary friend borders at schizophrenia. Once when he meets the Vampire and the other time Don is assassinated. The two underlying Christian beliefs, that is of the second coming of Jesus and the violent death that the Messiah must suffer for the salvation of the humankind; are intricately woven in the story. The Indian concept of Maya (Illusion) and that of concept of rebirth is also used as the fabric of the narration.
Richard introduces two innovations that of the God is not referred as He but Is. The second being that imagination is sought to replace faith as the foundation of one's religion.
He attempt to straighten the triangle into a straight line. The vertices's of the triangle being Maya, Christianity and science.
Overall a readable book, if one is comfortable with the concept of Maya.

(c) 2006, Ashish Banerjee, www.Ashish.Banerjee.name

Scientists and Their Gods

My friend Ranjan sent me this link:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html
I would like to share my response to this beautifully written article above.

Re: This is a story from the end of Landau's life....
I did not get the meaning of the Landau's death bed story. Are they saying that if he believed in God, then and only then God would have saved him? Or does it mean he would have died with a false hope of after life?
and
Re:Chandrasekhar : But I have a feeling of disappointment because the hope for contentment and a peaceful outlook on life as...

I think it is possible to be enlightened about a possibility of No God AND be happy. The whole world is an illusion created by our mind, yes its called Maya in Hinduism. And, this illusion can be as horrible or as beautiful as you want it to be.

I meditate regularly and feel ecstatic, its the goal to reach from Sakar (manifested) to Nirakar (un-manifested). One must realize the beauty of Yoga Maya.

Even Jesus, realized it when he said" The Kingdom of God is witin us" Luke 17:21
In Hinduism we say Mandir, that is maan ke andir (inside us).

So concept of a personal God is NOT useless, it is the first stepping stone to enlightenment. A journey from Saakar to Nirakar.

We humans have a God circuit built within us during evolution. So, we need God, and necessity is the mother of invention. Thus all civilizations invented the concept of God.

There is a beautiful insight given by a poetry derived from Brihadaryanaka Upanishad mantra 30, Canto 28.

Lead me from the unreal, to the Reality;
Lead me from the darkness, to the Light;
Lead me from the finite, to the Infinity.

(given below is the Unicode formatted Sanskrit text, you need to turn on Unicode support to view them properly)
असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय।
asato ma sadgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,
mriityor ma amriitam gamaya |

Here is more if you would like to know about my thoughts:
http://ashishbanerjee.blogspot.com/2006/05/neo-vedanta.html