Nivedita Joshi, daughter of Murli Manohar Joshi, was incapacitated for almost a decade because of slip disc. After a miraculous recovery under the living legend of yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar's care, she has resumed not only her normal life, but also is so inspired that she is setting up an Iyengar yoga center in Delhi

"SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY ARE CONVERGING" —Murli Manohar Joshi

Sitting in the drawing room of his central Delhi official residence, wearing his usual dhoti-kurta, the Union Human Resource Development Minister and former BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party) President, Murli Manohar Joshi doesn't betray any pressures of politics and his high office. He graciously agrees to be part of the Life Positive story about his daughter.

The former head of the physics department at Allahabad University, India, says that he has been deeply interested in the study of consciousness. "Yes, science and spirituality are converging today. Modern physics now speaks the language of the mystics. In understanding the ultimate reality, both are coming to the same viewpoint. Science is the pursuit of truth and spirituality is the realization of truth. True scientists become spiritual and true spiritual people have a scientific temper."

When asked why politics and polity aren't keeping pace with these developments, Joshi says it's happening, albeit slowly. "UNESCO recommends spirituality as part of education. The recent world peace summit at the UN focused on spirituality." He believes that lasting solutions to today's problems will come out of blending spirituality with all walks of life. Spirituality is a unifying force that can counteract the divisive tendencies in society. And it is in the air again, because "people, fed up with the complexities of modern life, are looking for some salve for their disturbed souls".

In India, the HRD minister points out, the UGC (University Grants Commission) has decided to incorporate yoga in the education system and it has already been made compulsory in many schools. "Due to our colonial mindset we interpret secularism wrongly, and that is why there is opposition to systems like yoga. But yoga is nondiscriminatory. For example, Muslims say their namaz (prayer) in a yoga posture, vajrasana." The BJP leader laments the fact that for the last 150 years, Indian heritage has not been taught in schools even though India had reached the zenith in many fields long back.

Joshi recounts how during the 20 months he spent in the Naini Central Jail, Bareilly, India, during the Emergency of the '80s, yoga kept him and his fellow incarcerated politicians cool and composed.

He met B.K.S. Iyengar because of Nivedita's back problem and found that he had applied yoga to modern lifestyle. "And, no, it's not merely physical postures, Iyengar yoga leads to the inner soul. I call him the second Patanjali