Mathematics of Spirituality

Dr. Raju Chidambaram was introduced to the lofty and sublime field of Advaita philosophy by Swami Chinmayanandaji. A mathematician by training, Dr.Chidambaram received his Masters degree in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta and Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. A major part of his working career was spent in Washington, DC with the Communications Satellite Corporation and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization in planning global communications satellite systems. Among his publications is a book on Operations Research published by the National Productivity Council, New Delhi, India as well as technical papers in Game Theory, Forecasting, and Satellite Systems Planning.

Dr. Chidambaram’s background as an Operations Researcher led him some ten years ago to investigate the fundamentally uncertain nature of human decision-making. This work showed how the uncertainty in human decision-making bears close similarity to the uncertainty in physical processes noted by quantum physicists. Further, it showed how the Advaitic teachings regarding Prakriti and Ishwara provide a paradigm that describes adequately both uncertain processes. The results were published in the Chinmaya Management Review in 2000 and also presented at the International WAVES Conference held in Washington, DC in 2004. Further development of that paradigm undertaken in the last five years has resulted in the mathematical model based on Advaita reported in the present work.