My first question, do you think a common man suffering spiritual vacuum in his life will be able to relate to your book? You have achieved the best in all that you have done so far. On reading your book, I sensed an added effort at making science and religion converge. Does love have a scientific basis?

My primary purpose in writing the book is to be of help to all people feeling a spiritual vacuum just as I did when I embarked on my odyssey to analyze spirituality through the eyes of a mature and skeptical scientist. I have tried my best to present the very latest scientific knowledge in the language that the common man can comprehend without a background in science. I believe I have provided credible evidences for my inference that the one source, Code Name God, of all spiritual traditions is grounded in scientific reality.

Science and spirituality are in fact two sides of the same coin – our consciousness. The same consciousness that experiences spirituality can also provide empirical support for the experience. Interestingly, it seems that the human brain developed to the point where our consciousness was first able to experience the oneness of everything. There are compelling reasons to believe that the Vedic Seers and the founders of all spiritual traditions of the world have experienced this oneness, a transcendent higher power. Through the eons, people have believed in this oneness with blind faith. Why? Because it enriched their lives. Amazingly, science, which pervades our daily lives today, is now showing through quantum physics and modern cosmology that oneness is not a matter of blind faith anymore. If we allow this truth to take root in our consciousness, it will go a long way to fill the spiritual vacuum.

Scientists are usually turned off by blind faith that can allow some undesirable things such as superstition and dogma to creep in. Science can separate the wheat from the chaff. Religion and science should be complimentary as Einstein has wisely suggested.
Since everything comes from one source, we are all cosmic kins. I believe that is the scientific basis for universal love. Our Poet Laureate Tagore expressed it eloquently, “without me, my Lord, your love would have been for naught.”

What’s the first thought on your mind when you wake up on a working day? After all, you have everything at your feet, then how do you keep yourself going from dawn to dusk?

The first thought in my mind when I wake up is: I have got a brand new day. What is the best that I can do with it? I try to live every moment in the present, which takes care of the past and the future. As the ancient poet Kalidas said, “Yesterday is but a dream. Tomorrow is only a vision. Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day.”

Have you ever felt that had you been in India, your spiritual dilemmas and loneliness would be non-existent?

It is hard to speculate what would have happened to me if I never left India. Generally speaking, life in India is more communal than individual, which leaves less time for introspect.
Being a man of science as well as faith, how would you justify the use of science to defeat faith, in other words, terrorism?

Faith that breeds terrorism is blind faith at its worse, which can only be cured through education to bring the truth to them as well as eradicate poverty contributing to their blind faith. I believe the truth will ultimately prevail.

There’s poverty all over in this country. Why do you think the ‘code name’ helps them survive with the basic needs of life?

I was born in utter poverty and managed to get out of it as documented in my book. This should give people hope that it is possible to change one’s situation drastically. Poverty is being eradicated today - slowing but surely - throughout the world. Both the technology and the capital are available more than ever before. I truly believe it is a matter of time that abundance will come to all.

If you had to choose one, what would you prefer to be known as, Mani Bhaumik, the scientist, or, Mani Bhaumik, the believer?

I am a scientist first. However, that does not make me a non- believer. To the contrary, science strengthens my belief in a higher transcendental power, the source of everything.

You can give away all your palaces and cars for …

Paraphrasing Tagore, I would say renunciation is not my way. I believe in being both enlightened and happy amongst all the hussle and bustle of life. Renunciation to me is a real cop out, because life is for living at its fullest.

Do you believe in life after death?

As a scientist I have an open mind about life after death but I do believe in the physics of immortality since I can trace back my existence to the very beginning of time itself about 14 billion years ago.

Had he lived today, how do you think the Mahatma would try to efface violence from the world? Would ahimsa work in a place that’s faced the Twin towers and Gujarat genocide?

Nonviolence has done miracles in the world, for example, freedom of India, democracy in South Africa without a bloodbath, racial integration in America. However, it could not stop the partition of India with its tragic aftermath or the violent beginning of the Kashmir problem.

How do you plan to spread out ‘the Holy Grail of Physics’ in an unthinking world that’s afflicted with gaping wounds of the Iraq war, the Lebanon brutalities, the unsolved, unending fury in Kashmir and so on?

History shows us that the world has always been afflicted with war and brutality. We are just more aware of it today because of the availability of mass communications. Again, I am an optimist. The horrible world wars 1 and 2 are now a distant memory. For the first time in human history, weapons of mass destruction are dismantled rather than being used. The countries of Europe, which were perennially at war with each other only about a century ago, are now members of the European Union. When technology eventually brings abundance to the entire world and spirituality is entrenched to the message of oneness supported by science, I believe the world would be a much happier place to live.

Is it possible for a materialist man to be spiritual in the true sense?

A spiritualist puts mind over matter which need not be mutually exclusive. But true happiness comes when we practice the primacy of spirit over the material aspects of our life.

The best book you’ve ever read …

The best book I ever read is the Book of Nature which is God’s deeds as revealed by science.

Your motto is …

My motto is to do the best that I am capable of and be happy doing it.

Sidney Sheldon has applauded your book. Your interactions with the God of thrillers…

Sidney is a creative genius, from being a successful Broadway playwright to being the creator of numerous blockbuster TV Series and finally to be the bestselling author entered in the Guinness book of World records. Yet he is disarmingly humble and so human. He described his creativity to me as bubbling naturally from inside.

What are you offering us next?

I wrote Code Name God for the grown-ups. Now I am focusing my attention on bringing the message of oneness as supported by science to the more malleable and open minded children who are our future.