Sam Harris, the best-selling atheist author, has done it again! In 2004, the American neuroscientist published End of Faith, securing his position as one of the “Four Horsemen of Atheism,” among the ranks of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. A few years ago, when I glanced at his best-selling End of Faith in the bookstore, I just happened to open to his section on mysticism. There, in a few paragraphs, he differentiated mysticism from religion, identifying religion as a belief or faith and mysticism as rational.

In his acceptance address for the Nobel prize in literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyn cited a Russian proverb: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” He also quoted Dostoyevsky: “Beauty will save the world.” If one word of truth outweighs the whole world, the world must be very false. But this truth is unpalatable, given the extent of beauty in this world. So much is this so that we cling to the beauty of the world, even when we are told the simple yet profound truth that it will not endure. How then will beauty save us, when attachment to it seems to be the cause of samsara, suffering in rounds of repeated birth and death?

At first sight, dualism appears palpable in the world of Mahavisnu. There is consciousness and there is matter, two different substances very much unlike one another. Consciousness is the mover, while matter is moved. In today’s world some would be quick to ask that if consciousness moves matter, why can’t we observe the interaction between the two?