“The sacred encounters”

My friend Ervad K. N. Dastoor has very lucidly written about Behramshah Shroff and the Ilm-e-Khshnoom in his two-part article "The sacred encounters” (Parsi­ana, January 21 and February 7, 2007). I noticed that while mentioning some of the followers of Shroff, Dastoor does not mention Minocher Pundole who also claimed contact with the same Abed sahebs and propagated their teachings. I do not know whether or not Dastoor also follows Pundole.

This brings me to an issue that every rational thinking Parsi Zoroastrian faces. If one accepts as true the teachings of Shroff then there will be no basis for rejecting the teachings of Pundole. After the death of the latter, yet another Zoroastrian had claimed that he was in contact with the Abed sahebs. We will have to accept even that claim. Not only that, we will have no ground to reject the claim of Dharmendra Mishra who proclaimed in the Bombay High Court that "I’m Ram, Vishnu, Buddha and Christ (Mumbai Mirror, March 9, 2007).”

While it is true that in matters of religion there can be no complete proof and it is a matter of faith, there has to be some rational basis for faith.

Dastoor also refers to the fourth, fifth… nth dimensions and to the String theory in support of his thesis. The fourth dimension is either linked with time or as another spatial dimension. There are some equations defining the fourth and other dimensions. The Wikipedia explains String theory as "a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point particles that form the basis for the Standard Model of particle physics. The phrase is often used as shorthand for Superstring theory.” The String theory suggests the existence of 10 or 11 space time dimensions. The fourth, fifth... nth dimensions and the String theory are mathematical theories — not as yet empirically verified.

Both Shroff and Pundole who claimed to have visited the Abed sahebs in these other dimensions have left no empirical data by which to verify the existence of the dimensions other than the third which we are accustomed to. The three dimensional space of length, breadth and depth that we inhabit can easily be perceived and measured. An entry into fourth or more dimension space, if possible, would be completely different from ours and they would have certainly left us some verifiable description of these. Both Shroff and Pundole seem to describe a three dimensional world which is invisible to normal humans on this earth.

To jump from these esoteric mathematical theories to a place on earth not visible to the normal inhabitants of earth but inhabited by highly spiritual beings or to a privileged few who are permitted by the Abed sahebs is to jump from science to science fiction.

E. P. BHARUCHA