When I lived in Bangalore I ran across one Professor Venkatesh, a physicist, who had retired from the Indian Institute of Science and had set himself up as a teacher of Vedanta. Ravi Amur, one of my good friends and fellow engineer, was his disciple. Ravi's wife, Chitra, completed her doctorate in theoretical physics at the IISc. That was his connection. 

    I went along with Ravi a few times to Professor V's house, just because he was such a very interesting person to talk to; and because the girls disdained you in favor of wealthier, better-looking, and more presentable hotdogs. So what's a young fellow to do with a loose evening? 

    Some people radiate peace and good-will, and Professor Venkatesh was one of those. Also you could discuss anything at all with him -- whether religion or whether the design of the processor you were building. He was a man of quick wit and deep learning. 

    I asked him also about Vedanta. I asked that if I asked to be his student would he accept me? He said he'd be happy to. I asked what I'd have to do. He said that the first thing to do would be to learn Sanskrit. That was like having a bucket of cold water poured over me. I said Professor Venkatesh, it is quite a job to learn Sanskrit. I'd be forever learning Sanskrit. I'd never get to Vedanta, I said. 

    I had spent a lot of good youthful time in school declining Sanskrit verbs ad nauseum, but reading almost not nothing in the language that made more sense than poop. School education in India is more than wrong. It is an exercise in imbecility. But that is another subject. About the only nice thing in Sanskrit that I remember from those days is a fragment of a Saraswati vandana: 

Ya kund-endu-tushaar-haar-dhavala,
Ya shweta-vastravrita
Ya veena-varadanda-manditkara,
Ya shweta-padmasana.

    Professor Venkatesh said, "To every discipline there is a language that is proper to it." 

    "If you wish to learn physics without learning mathematics, is that a good way to learn physics?" he asked. 

    "And how would you describe the sound of a bamboo flute played at sunset in Hindi or in English?" he asked. "That's impossible. The proper language to describe that feeling is the language of the flute itself. Nothing else will do." 

    "Likewise," he said, "the language of Vedanta is Sanskrit." 

    I said, "Professor Venkatesh that is all very well but what happens if you teach me first Sanskrit and then Vedanta, and you know that I'm not a very bright fellow. What if I just cannot learn? What if I just don't get it?" 

    "That happens to me all the time with everything," I said. 

    He said, "We have been teaching Vedanta for thousands of years. We can teach Vedanta even to a donkey." 

    I have always found Vedanta very attractive. Vedanta says that Man has three needs: Perfect Knowledge, Perfect Happiness, and Perfect Being. 

    Perfect Knowledge is something I could really use. Perfect Happiness sounds OK too --- if it is anything like the feeling after some perfect sex. Perfect Being seems a little abstract to me. No death? No illness like the flu I am stricken with today? No headache? What the devil is Perfect Being? 

    Vedanta goes on to say that you can have it all! That is a claim, I hope you'll agree, of rather breathtaking audacity. 

    In fact Vedanta claims we already have perfect knowledge. And perfect happiness. And perfect being. And that all that is lacking is the realization that we have it all. This claim has always worried me. It appears to suggest that the method of Vedanta may consist either in part, or entirely, of a process of convenient redefinition. Whereby you redefine everything so that the conclusion is inescapable that you have it all --- but you still feel like the same sad old dog in your underwear. You still have holes in your socks. And no money. And your head still hurts from the mere thought of thinking about the true meaning and purpose of the Heine-Borel theorem. 

    It is my private and personal theory that there are two kinds of learning. There is the Learning Of The Head that comes when you have worked hard with much expenditure of ink, electricity, and gray matter, and the problem begins to make sense, and the answer maybe also, and you begin to think that maybe the world is alright. 

    And then there is the Learning Of The Heart, coming later perhaps, perhaps never, where you feel the problem and the answer in your belly and your bones, and there is no thought at all. Just pure feeling. You know that such and such theorem is correct, and that you could always make up a proof, or five. That is a much more fulfilling kind of learning. It has become a part of you, and it shall never ever again be taken away. 

    The head kind of learning is volatile. It tends to evaporate. It leaves you still with an empty hunger in your stomach. 

    When I was twelve I went to Pandit Khastgir at my school in New Delhi and asked to learn music. He put up with me for about a week and then he told me as gently as he was able (which wasn't much): "Look here," he said, "You are wasting your time. And you are wasting my time." 

    "Why don't you go in for radio engineering or something?" he said, "That is also a good hobby." 

    I was telling this story one evening in St. Louis to Professor Ranade, a musician visiting from Bombay University, who had just that evening performed before a large gathering. I told him also about what Professor Venkatesh had to say about being able to teach Vedanta to a donkey. "Why can't you people do something like that?" I asked Professor Ranade, "I'd really love to be able to sing half like Bhimsen Joshi." 

    Without batting an eyelid he said, "Oh music is music! It is not Vedanta that we could teach it to just anyone." 

    And he laughed a nice shaking laugh, and we all laughed too. Maybe if I had had some Vedanta under my belt, I could have sung him something then and there to show him that even a donkey can sing. That should certainly be a part of the promise of Perfect Being, don't you think? But the musicians have this bee in their bonnet about something they call swar gyan. Either you have it. Or you don't. 

    I remember once sitting and chatting with Professor Venkatesh in his veranda, when a lizard dropped almost directly on me from the ceiling above, and I all but took off in fright. Professor Venkatesh laughed. "You who would become one with the Brahman," he said, "You will have to learn to put up with lizards." 

    I find religion distasteful. About 10% of it I like because it has to do with music, poetry, literature, architecture and dance. But the remaining 90% of it is so thick with mumbo-jumbo and miscellaneous unadulterated garbage, that I find it very difficult to believe that any half-sensible person would have any truck with it. I was open about my distaste for religion with Professor Venkatesh. I said I hoped that no sort of prior belief in anything will be assumed of me. 

    He was very reassuring on that point. He said that no belief was needed of me that I did not already have. He said that if a point of view was found convenient or necessary I would be led to it in a way that it would erupt spontaneously from within me. He said that the methods of Vedanta vary with the personality of the disciple. There are bhakti-oriented people that have to be handled differently from the sort of people that will defile every idol with doubt and thought. Whose primary relationship with any sort of authority is one of opposition and disbelief. I found it very satisfying to learn that the teaching of Vedanta took all that into account. So why does Indian education today treat every child as an equal donkey? 

    Vivek Basrur wrote me a url: http://www.awaaz.net/art/lilavati/default.htm that contains an article about teaching mathematics by way of dance. I think there is little in the world as enchanting as a Kathak or a Bharatanatyam performance. Kathak and Bharatanatyam I am very partial to. Odissi also I do like, but less so. I have seen Sanjukta Panigrahi and her son dance the Odissi. In Kathakali I very much like the abhinaya in parts, but I am sorry to say that I find it a bit of a drag to sit through an entire performance of Kathakali. However, as a vehicle for mathematics my feeling is that dance is not quite the right language. Dance is very good as a celebration of the animal form. Even of the plant form perhaps. I remember Bui telling me once during a storm when she was two or three: "Look Baba, even the leaves are dancing!" 

    But for mathematics nothing serves quite as well as a few scrawls on a piece of paper. Dance is not its language.

    Some two years ago we had the privilege here in Austin to see one of Birju Maharaj's disciples perform. That was Arjun Maharaj of Lucknow. He had been invited over by the Battery Dance Company of New York. Incidentally, I found out only recently that Birju Maharaj also sings wonderfully. Abha found three CDs with his songs at a music store in Austin.