Legend to Family Photo 1934

Srrinivasa Balasankar’s family of origin

“Back Row Standing :
Srinivasan (cousin of Smt. Sithalakshmi, wife of Sri.S.Pasupathi). Left to Right: late R.Gopala Mama (brother of my mother Meenakshi Ammal), late S.Pasupathi (my elder brother), late R.Swaminatha Iyer (my chithappa of vellore). The baby he is holding is the late Rangan, his last son. The late Dr. S. Sreedhara Iyer (my eldest brother), the late V.S.Sathyanarayanan (my younger brother), V.Srinivasa Balasankar, and the late Kuppuswami (compounder at peranamallur hospital).

Middle Row, standing:
the late Sampurnam Ramaswami (my last chithi of Srirangam). Left to right: the late Sakunthala Ramanathan (my elder sister), the late Seethalakshmi Pasumathi (my manni, wife of Pasupathi), the late (Pranahitha) Lakshmudu Vaidyanathan (my elder sister, holding her son), the late Rukmani Swaminathan (my chithi of Vellore), the late Meenakshi Sreedhar (my periya Manni, holding Padma?), the late Pushpavalli Vaidhyanathan (my eldest sister), the late (Indravathi) Ramudu Natarajan (my elder sister holding Ganapathi).

Front Row seated:
the late A. Ramantha Iyer (my brother-in-law. Sakunthala's husband). Left to right: the late V.H.Vaidhyanatha Iyer (my brother-in-law, Lakshmudu's husband, holding Pattammal), the late Sambasiva Iyer ( Dhadi Thatha, holding the late Balasubramaniam, alias Kuppan). The late E.A.Vaidhyanatha Iyer (my eldest brother-in-law, Pushpavalli's husband). The late M.N.Nataraja Iyer (my brother-in-law, Ramudu's husband, holding Late Rajalakshmi).

Front Row, sitiing:
the late V.S.Rajalakshmi (my younger sister). Left to right, the late V.Parthasarathi (my nephew Pushpavalli's son), the late V.S. Rajeswari (my cousin, daughter of Rukmani Chithhi). The late V.S.Seetharaman (my cousin, son of Rukmani Chithhi), V.S.Ranaganayaki Ramamurthi (my niece, daughter of Pushpavalli), V.S.Panchanadeesan (my cousin, son of Rukmani Chithi)”.

10 top qoutes about India and our religion

It is very heartening to read 10 top qoutes about India and our religion from famous personalities In Praise of India

1. Will Durant, American historian: "India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".

2. Mark Twain, American author: "India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."

3. Albert Einstein, American scientist: "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."

4. Max Mueller, German scholar: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.

5. Romain Rolland, French scholar : "If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India."

6. Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA: "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."

7. Mark Twain: "So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked."

8. Keith Bellows, VP - National Geographic Society : "There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won’t go. For me, India is such a place. When I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land, by its lush beauty and exotic architecture, by its ability to overload the senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds... I had been seeing the world in black & white and, when brought face-to-face with India, experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant technicolor."

9. Mark Twain: "India has two million gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire."

10. A Rough Guide to India: "It is impossible not to be astonished by India. Nowhere on Earth does humanity present itself in such a dizzying, creative burst of cultures and religions, races and tongues. Enriched by successive waves of migration and marauders from distant lands, every one of them left an indelible imprint which was absorbed into the Indian way of life. Every aspect of the country presents itself on a massive, exaggerated scale, worthy in comparison only to the superlative mountains that overshadow it. It is this variety which provides a breathtaking ensemble for experiences that is uniquely Indian. Perhaps the only thing more difficult than to be indifferent to India would be to describe or understand India completely. There are perhaps very few nations in the world with the enormous variety that India has to offer. Modern day India represents the largest democracy in the world with a seamless picture of unity in diversity unparalleled anywhere else"

Lakshi Mittal,s visit toTATAS.

Note written by Lakshmi Mittal after his recent visit to TISCO


Following is a note written by Lakshmi Mittal after his visit to TISCO recently.

Lakshmi Mittal:

- Undisputed King of World Steel
- 5th Richest Man, per the Forbes List of Billionaires (2006)
- Richest Indian in the World, with an estimated fortune of $27.7 billion
- Richest in UK according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, with a net worth of £14.8
billion.
- 2006 Person of the Year, per The Financial Times

"........I visited Jamshedpur over the weekend to see for myself an India that is fast
disappearing despite all the wolf-cries of people like Narayanamurthy and his ilk. It is one
thing to talk and quite another to do and I am delighted to tell you that Ratan Tata has kept
alive the legacy of perhaps India's finest industrialist J.N. Tata. Something that some people
doubted when Ratan took over the House of the Tata's but in hindsight, the best thing to
have happened to the Tata's is unquestionably Ratan. I was amazed to see the extent of
corporate philanthropy and this is no exaggeration.

For the breed that talks about corporate social responsibility and talks about the role
of corporate India, a visit to Jamshedpur is a must. Go there and see the amount of money
they pump into keeping the town going; see the smiling faces of workers in a region known
for industrial unrest; see the standard of living in a city that is almost isolated from the mess
in the rest of the country.

This is not meant to be a puff piece. I have nothing to do with Tata Steel, but I
strongly believe the message of hope and the message of goodness that they are spreading
is worth sharing. The fact that you do have companies in India which look at workers as
human beings and who do not blow their software trumpet of having changed lives. In fact, I
asked Mr. Muthuraman, the managing director, as to why he was so quiet about all they had
done and all he could offer in return was a smile wrapped in humility, which said it all. They
have done so much more since I last visited Jamshedpur, which was in 1992. The town has
obviously got busier but the values thankfully haven't changed.

The food is still as amazing as it always was and I gorged, as I would normally do. I
visited the plant and the last time I did that was with Russi Mody. But the plant this time was
gleaming and far from what it used to be.

Greener and cleaner and a tribute to environment management. You could have been
in the mountains. Such was the quality of air I inhaled! There was no belching smoke; no
tired faces and so many more women workers, even on the shop floor. This is true gender
equality and not the kind that is often espoused at seminars organised by angry activists. I
met so many old friends. Most of them have aged but not grown old. There was a spring in
the air which came from a certain calmness which has always been the hallmark of
Jamshedpur and something I savoured for a full two days in between receiving messages of
how boring and decrepit the lack lustre Fashion Week was.

1


Note written by Lakshmi Mittal after his recent visit to TISCO

Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata had created an edifice that is today a robust company
and it is not about profits and about valuation. It is not about who becomes a millionaire and
who doesn't'. It is about getting the job done with dignity and respect keeping the age-old
values intact and this is what I learnt.

I jokingly asked someone as to whether they ever thought of joining an Infosys or a
Wipro and pat came the reply: "We are not interested in becoming crorepatis [millionaires]
but in making others crorepatis [millionaires]."

Which is exactly what the Tata's have done for years in and around Jamshedpur.
Very few people know that Jamshedpur has been selected as a UN Global Compact City,
edging out the other nominee from India, Bangalore. Selected because of the quality of life,
because of the conditions of sanitation and roads and welfare. If this is not a tribute to
industrial India, then what is? Today, India needs several Jamshedpurs but it also needs this
Jamshedpur to be given its fair due, its recognition. I am tired of campus visits being
publicised to the Infosys and the Wipro's of the world.

Modern India is being built in Jamshedpur as we speak. An India built on the strength
of core convictions and nothing was more apparent about that than the experiment with truth
and reality that Tata Steel is conducting at Pipla.

Forty-eight tribal girls (yes, tribal girls who these corrupt and evil politicians only talk
about but do nothing for) are being educated through a residential program over nine
months. I went to visit them and I spoke to them in a language that they have just learnt:
Bengali. Eight weeks ago, they could only speak in Sainthali, their local dialect. But today,
they are brimming with a confidence that will bring tears to your eyes. It did to mine.

One of them has just been selected to represent Jharkand in the state archery
competition. They have their own women's football team and what's more they are now fond
of education. It is a passion and not a burden.

This was possible because I guess people like Ratan Tata and Muthurman haven't
sold their souls to some business management drivel, which tells us that we must only do
business and nothing else. The fact that not one Tata executive has been touched by the
Naxalites in that area talks about the social respect that the Tata's have earned.

The Tata's do not need this piece to be praised and lauded. My intent is to share the
larger picture that we so often miss in the haze of the slime and sleaze that politics imparts.
My submissions to those who use phrases such as "feel-good" and "India Shining" is first
visit Jamshedpur to understand what it all means. See Tata Steel in action to know what
companies can do if they wish to. And what corporate India needs to do.

Murli Manohar Joshi would be better off seeing what Tata Steel has done by creating
the Xavier Institute of Tribal Education rather than by proffering excuses for the imbroglio in
the IIMs. This is where the Advanis and Vajpayees need to pay homage. Not to all the Sai
Babas and the Hugging saints that they are so busy with. India is changing inspite of them
and they need to realise that.

I couldn't have spent a more humane and wonderful weekend. Jamshedpur is an eye-
opener and a role model, which should be made mandatory for replication. I saw corporate
India actually participate in basic nation-building, for when these tribal girls go back to their
villages, they will return with knowledge that will truly be life-altering. Corporate India can do
it but most of the time is willing to shy away.

2


Note written by Lakshmi Mittal after his recent visit to TISCO

For those corporate leaders who are happier winning awards and being interviewed
on their choice of clothes, my advise is visit Tata Steel, spend some days at Jamshedpur and
see a nation's transformation. That is true service and true nationalism.

Tata Steel will celebrate 100 years of existence in 2007. It won't be just a milestone in
this company's history. It will be a milestone, to my mind of corporate transparency and
generosity in this country. It is indeed fitting that Ratan Tata today heads a group which has
people who are committed to nation-building than just building influence and power.

JRD must be smiling wherever he is. And so must Jamshedji Nusserwanji. These
people today have literally climbed every last blue mountain. And continue to do so with
vigour and passion. Thank god for the Tata's !"

Go. Kiss the World.

Go, Kiss the World
by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting, India

Welcome Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 on July 2, 2005 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India on defining success.
I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.
As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance - a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.
The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.
Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it".
That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.
Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.
Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.
My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.
Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.
Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes.
That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.
Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.
He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the mimetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.
My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.
Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!
Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.
Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.

Dr.Lakshmi Atri weds Dr.Jeffrey Mason

Lakshmi Atri is my grand daughter and daughter of Dr.Padmini Atri. Her wedding with Jeffrey Mason was celebrated at Sweetwater farms in Philadelphia. All family members and friends attended and blessed the couple.

Human Body and Consciousness

CHAPTER 9

A LOOK AT HUMAN BODY AND CONSCIOUSNESS FROM
THE ANGLE OF PLANETARY DYNAMICS AND NUCLEAR
PHYSICS|


“The passage from the infinite absolute
to a limited nature is influenced by
Maaya and the transition is called space”
(Verse 104, Chapter 18, Tripura-Rahasya***)”

“Self in one is space in another and vice-
versa ...... Space is self and self is
space .... Space implies sections....
Each section is called mind....”
(Chapter 18 Tripura – Rahasya ***)--------- --author’s interpretation. what was in sri Dattatreya’s mind when he spoke these verses to parasurama?
*** this book, published by RAMANASRAMAM at Thiruvannamalai , contains sri DATTATREYA’S teachings and guidance to PARASURAMA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is human consciousness matter-based or space-based?

Preamble :

The human body is composed of atoms. Each atom is a tiny particle of diameter less than one tenth of one billionth of a metre. The distance between two atoms is enormous when compared to the diameter of the atoms. The atom itself is not a solid particle but merely a collection of sub particles. At the centre of each atom is a nucleus, very much like the sun of the solar system, with a number of electrons revolving round it very much like the planets revolving round the sun. The sum total of volumes of all the electrons and nucleus of an atom is just negligible, less than a billionth of the volume of the atom itself. No two atoms touch each other. Can such discontinuous matter harbour human consciousness ?

Body is space :

Thus human body is a collection of atoms sprinkled sparsely in space with a huge yawning gap between the atoms as compared to the diameter of the individual atoms. Let us now imagine an observer, extremely tiny in size, say less than several trillionth of the size of an electron. Let us assume this tiny observer has faculties of perceiving the external world just as we perceive the external world. This observer when placed on the skin of a human body does not see any skin at all. He sees the individual atoms of the skin, no two atoms of which touch each other.

The tiny pico sized observer (let us say 10(-40) in size) does not see the skin as skin at all but as space with a sprinkling of atoms here and there with a huge void in between the atoms. He can travel through the skin, the way a space ship travels in space. Each atom is like a star to him, each atom consisting of a sun like nucleus with earth like electrons revolving round the nucleus. The micro or rather the pico-pico-pico sized observer travels through the human body, travelling through the skin, entering the blood vessels, bones, flesh, tissues, nerves, muscles, etc. But to this observer it all looks like empty space with a few sprinkling of stars only.

He can not discern where the skin ends and where flesh begins, which is blood and which is the wall of the vessel. He does not see any part of the body the way it appears to us humans. The observer only sees the vast emptiness of space sparsely filled with star-like atoms. If he enters any of these atoms he sees a huge sun (nucleus) emanating radiation visible and invisible with planet-like electrons in orbit. He finds an atom largely a void except for a nucleus and few electrons forming a negligible fraction of the total volume of an atom.

Thus the tiny observer (tiny as compared to our size) sees the basic discontinuous nature of matter.
Matter is mostly void since each particle, as the observer approaches it , presents itself as yet another stupendous collection of sub particles with a huge gap between the sub particles as compared to the diameter of these particles. As the observer goes on dwindling in size, he also sees that the solid matter also expands into nothing, expanding into just void or space where he is unable to locate particles which are continuous.

No particle is `Space or void free’

He is unable to locate a `space-free’ particle, a particle that contains no space within its envelope or boundary, a particle that is composed of continuous matter. To an observer capable of limitless dwindling in size, any particle on entering it ,is exposed as space containing a collection of particles.

When he dwindles in size, this single solid speck resolves into stupendous collection of tinier particles dispersed with in the confines of the original speck. He finds, that what appears as solid matter to the human eye is just space in reality, is just void in effect.

Continuity of space and discontinuity of matter :

Thus the human body is largely void or space and the tiny observer, travelling through the vast spaces of the human body is unable to locate the centre of human consciousness. To him, the human body is space, sparsely filled with a collection of several galaxies, a drop of blood looking like several galaxies of stars to him. In this vast void where a mere speck of human body appears to him like the Milky Way galaxy or the Andromeda galaxy he cannot locate the seat of human consciousness.
Each particle of matter is fictitious as it disappears into void when the observer becomes very much smaller than the observed particle. The observed particle, then, to the dwindling observer, explodes into mighty void which is sparsely filled. Can such fictitious apparent matter, composed mostly of space and perhaps only of space, be the seat of consciousness? The human body composing essentially of void does harbour a consciousness in its envelope. This consciousness is therefore space based, is trapped in the confines of space within the human envelope.

Once we admit that space harbours consciousness, then it follows that all space harbours consciousness whether it be the confined space within a human envelope or the space outside the human envelope. All that the human envelope, enveloping a particular section of space, seems to do is to isolate a certain section of space and make it assume an individual consciousness of its own, an ego, of its own. The unfragmentable space appears to have been fragmented into individual envelopes of space, each envelope harbouring an ego-consciousness. The Ego or the human `I’ consciousness seems to have seceded from the universal space or universal consciousness.

(How is the envelope fromed? Space should have fragmanted itself). (Swayambhu. Self born.)

The tiny observer traversing the human body like a space traveler, if he had no prior knowledge of human body, will dispute the very existence of it, as he sees only empty space filled with galaxies of stars.

We, the humans, are in the same position as this tiny observer. We look into the skies and see the mind boggling vastness of the space, containing countless trillions of galaxies, the Milky Way galaxy alone consisting of 88000 million stars, the nearest galaxy being the Andromda galaxy several million light years away. We are unable to comprehend that all these stupendous collection of galaxies may form a bigger body of a bigger being. We refuse to believe that all stars may be merely atoms in a bigger world.

Molecules and Galaxies :
To the tiny observer the electron may be a planet. To us the Earth is a planet. The tiny observer also may find life, history and geography and he may find civilizations flourishing and dying on the electrons. What is merely one gram of oxygen to us is a galaxy to the tiny observer containing 6 x 1025 stars, each atom of oxygen appearing like a star to him. In the same way the Milky Way galaxy containing 88000 million stars may be a speck of matter containing 88000 million atoms to a physically bigger intelligence.

If the tiny observer enlarges himself and becomes a man sized observer and realises that all the stars he was seeing are only atoms in a human body, he will further rationalise that all the disjoined stars and galaxies he sees in the skies can definitely form a bigger world where each star is an atom only. The whole universe may be merely an illusion conceived by the faculty of perception of a perceiver who may not be a distinctly separate identity from his faculty.

These micro and macro worlds may differ only in time scale. During the span of a micro second of a human being, several million civilisations may rise and fall on each of the electrons in a human body or in the air around it. What is several thousand centuries to us humans may be merely a fleeting moment of time in a bigger world where our Earth is an electron. The mini life on the electron may lead as complicated lives as we do on Mother Earth though their life span may be trillionth of our life span. Their perceptions may be so fast that in the trillionth of a second ,they can lead life which to them is as long and complicated as ours is to us. Time by itself is meaningless. The sensory speed of the observer decides the extent of Time.
It all seems to be a vast canvas of Maaya and Nuclear-physics does not lead us anywhere near the seat of consciousness. Space and Time are mere concepts created by the observer in us.

Summing up :

Matter is discontinuous; only space has continuity. To an observer capable of limitless shrinking in size, any particle on entering it, is exposed as mere space containing a collection of further particles. When the observer enlarges his own size, this collection of particles in space appears as a single particle to him and when he shrinks in size the single solid speck resolves again into a stupendous collection of tinier particles dispersed in the confines of the original speck.

Matter is therefore not only discontinuous but may also be Illusory, fictitious, a manifestation of Maaya.
What is seen is not dependent on the seen thing but on the seer.

If the seer shrinks in size then the speck earlier seen by him before shrinking, is now seen as a collection of particles dispersed in space. Therefore, the perception or the size or matter depends on the perceiver. The human body according to modern physics is 99.9999 ...... per cent void. Hence human consciousness is not based on matter but is space based as space is continuous, the universal space harbours universal consciousness which is sectionalised into individual Egos within individual envelopes or boundaries.

It is at this point the Vedanta philosophy takes off in its hunt for ‘I’ consciousness in its task of locating the `I’.
And consciousness cannot cease when the human body ceases.

Vedaanta proclaims that :

A thought free mind, on total cessation of individuality, becomes aware of itself in the total absence of thoughts. This is called “Self-Realisation” or “Self Awareness”. It rejoins the universal consciousness.

Knowing power or Recognising principle becomes aware of itself when the superimposed intoxication of Maaya (thoughts and emotions) is extinguished. The resident or the residual awareness within the 5 sheaths, emerges as a Self Awareness out of the extinguished debris of Maaya which had been superimposed till then. The residual Awareness which had seceded from universal Awareness, due to assumption of an Ego and Individuality rejoins the universal consciousness on losing its ego consciousness and Individuality.