Abstract:

Intrinsically every living being wants to be happy. Life is a never-ending pursuit of this happiness. Delicious food, nice sight, melodious music, enchanting fragrance, sex, acquiring money, power, strength, recognition, fame and beauty may be the sources of happiness. Unfortunately, every pleasure pursuit has its negative counterpart that brings sorrow for us at regular intervals. We fail, our beauty fades away with old-age, the famous slips into oblivion, the rich loses all his wealth, people once wielding power are put behind bars. The question is: should we go into depression when we are confronted with such setbacks? Or, should we learn to adjust with them? And how should we do it? Better still, is there a possibility of finding unadulterated happiness? The answers of these questions are essentially internal that may need a change in our inner consciousness. Just as a conventional algorithm is used to solve real-life problems of the world, we need an algorithm to solve the problems of our lives that can give true meaning of our existence and catapult us to unbounded love and happiness. Spirituality with a God-conscious life is the algorithm that converges most efficiently to our goal of perfect happiness. Every skill, trade or art requires training. A person needs to be trained for about two decades for becoming an engineer, doctor, or a manager. It requires a similar duration to become an athlete or an artist. Learning of a language requires step-by-step learning of alphabets, words, grammar and sentences. As we require to train our body and intelligence in a specific direction in order to be useful for the world, learning spirituality also requires sustained and disciplined efforts to unlock the treasures of inner wisdom. More so because spirituality goes beyond the levels of body and intelligence to include mind, ego and the soul. Just as in any science or trade there is both theory and practical, understanding spirituality and its application in our lives demand pursuing specific time-tested methods. Just as in the experimental science we need to have proper manual, guide, laboratory, equipment, procedures, do's and don'ts, in learning and practicing spirituality we need to identify these resources in order to get the desired results. Those who try to be happy without a spiritual understanding are making efforts in vain. It is only with spirituality that we can finally become free from anxiety, worry, hatred, jealousy, anger, frustration and greed that plague our day-to-day life.

Biography:

A Mechanical Engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur, Kanchan Chowdhury obtained doctorate from the same institution in 1984. He is currently a professor of Cryogenic Engineering Centre at IIT Kharagpur. He has guided 9 doctoral students, authored nearly 50 papers in national and international journals and is reviewer in many international journals. He has done post-doctoral research in the USA, Germany and Australia on a variety of subjects: Heat Exchangers, Cryogenic Refrigerators, Prevention of Fire in Oxygen Systems and Hazards of Electrostatics. His research interest also lies in helium liquefaction and refrigeration cold storage technology, natural gas reliquefaction, regasification and distribution. Prof Chowdhury has close interaction with industry and regularly advises and trains their engineers on Cryogenic Air Separation and Prevention of Fire in Oxygen Systems. More than 1100 engineers from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar have been trained through 50-odd training programs. He has spoken on spirituality at a number of institutions in the past, namely, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, BIT Meshra, NIT Jamshedpur, University of Kolkata.