The Religion Of Wonder

In this nimble volume titled The Religion of Wonder, writer Narendra Murty explores the history of religions and explains how science turned itself into another religious entity. He proposes a new religious thought that can bring back the concept of an enchanted world, something that we lost on our way when we decided that we were apart from nature and that nature was just dead matter, a storehouse of resources that was meant to be used up for our progress.

The cover of the book offers a gist of its philosophy. You find the silhouette of a person standing on a hill, using a torchlight to light up the dark sky. In the sky, embedded with stars, we find that the light illuminates minor portions of mathematical equations and geometric shapes. A huge part of them is still hidden in darkness, and the torchlight is too weak to fully light up the entire sky. But with the wonder that they have in their soul to uncover the remaining secrets of the sky, we hope they should lead the way forward for humanity.

The Religion of Wonder is all the more special for me because it is able to provide a perspective that ties in several concepts, like nature, religion, and science, that we imagine as being separate. It asserts the importance of preserving the mysticism within us, even when it is science and mathematics that can take us deeper into the religion of wonder, and they aren't antonymous.