Science of Soul: Science versus Spirituality

Vishnu Ratna What is the difference between a Buddha and an Albert Einstein? Is it possible that a Buddha is also an Albert Einstein or an Albert Einstein is also a Buddha? Einstein in his last days used to say I thought when I was young that sooner or later all the mysteries of existence would be solved and I worked hard. Now I can say that the more we know, the more existence turns out to be mysterious. The more we know, the less we know and the more we become aware of the vastness. Science has not been able to demystify existence. Albert Einstein says that science has failed to demystify existence, that on the contrary it has mystified things even more. Before the advent of the New Physics, Scientists used to say that all is matter. Now matter has disappeared. The deeper the physicist went into matter the more matter disappeared: it became all pure energy. How to define energy? Is it material? Energy cannot be material; energy is something very different from matter. Matter is static, energy is dynamic, matter is noun, energy is verb. Matter can be measured, energy is immeasurable, and it cannot be called matter. For a physicist a stone is no longer a stone now from the outside. A small pebble contains so much atomic energy that it can destroy the universe. The modern physicist is using the language of a mystic. For the first time when scientist looked at the electron, it found the paradox. Is it a particle or a wave? It behaves simultaneously as a particle and as a wave. A new word Quanta had to be discovered. Mystics have also been talking about the paradoxes. Mystics have said that life and death are one, not two; the scientist understands the language of the mystic. A new science is arising, the science of uncertainty. Hindus have called it Advaita non-dual. Werner Heisenberg was awarded Nobel Prize for his Principle of Uncertainty in 1932. Certainty is too gross; in the microcosmic world, everything is uncertain. What Mahavira called SYATWAD is the principle of uncertainty. Perhaps this, perhaps that -nothing is certain. Albert Einstein calls it Theory of Relativity.

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Is there a God? Mahavira would say perhaps yes, perhaps no, perhaps yes and no, both are right together simultaneously. Religion became mature 5000 years ago. Science is still growing. The meeting of Science and religion is now taking place; the east and west are meeting, the meeting of the introvert mind and the extrovert mind. We are now approaching a universal consciousness. The success of science was until now rooted in Aristotle. He is a perfectionist. A is A and never B. The first one to revolt against him is Albert Einstein. Science insists on being dispassionate; standing outside watching unprejudiced. Be objective, be impersonal. Just watch the fact. Do not be a participant. These are the basic requirement for a scientist. The Greek mind has helped to move in the direction of matter. That is the way to know matter. One can never know the mind that way, only matter. One can never know consciousness that way. One can know the outside, never inside. One is already involved in it, how can one reduce himself to an object? I will remain a subject, I cannot become an object. The Hindu mind has another direction, the direction of being; the direction of soul. In the Upanishad, Uddalaka says to his son Shwetketu Thou art that Tatwamasi Shwetketu. There is no distinction between that and thou. There is no possibility for you to know yourself like you can know a rock objectively. You can only become it. In the temple of Delphi because of the Greek mind, it is inscribed Know thyself. If the temple had been in India, the inscription would be Be thyself. The Greek mind is half reality; the Hindu mind is the other half of the reality. The future is now turning towards a great synthesis. Until now, religion has been half; science the other half. Religion and Science have to come together towards a greater whole. The spiritual experience is of the inner world, and science is the exploration of the exterior. The word Psychology originates from the word Psyche. Psyche means the soul. The exact meaning of the word Psychology would be Science of the soul. But Psychology denies the existence of soul. It accepts only the physical body and its by product the mind. As the physical body dies, the mind also dies; there is no rebirth, there is no reincarnation.

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Unless Psychology penetrates into spaces beyond mind, into the innermost core of human beings, it will not become a science. The word Psychology does not justify its name until it proves that it is Science of Soul. Mind is only an instrument, and it is the instrument of the physical body. However, mind is not all. Mind is only a bio-computer. The day is not far off when the function of the mind will be almost taken away by the computer. But Psychology is concerned only with the mind. And behaviorist says that there is no mind either, that man is only a physical organism. Only beyond mind is peace and silence. Unless Psychology penetrates the inner core of human beings, it will not become a science. Right now, its name is wrong; it has to prove that it is psychology- Science of the Soul. In the beginning, organized religion tried to kill science. Thereafter Science started claiming the whole territory of the objective world. Organized religion was earlier saying that they were right about the objective world as much as about the subjective world. That was wrong. They were right about the subjective world, but not about the objective world. Same thing has now started happening about the Science. It has become arrogant. It denies everything that is subjective, the consciousness, and the soul. One of the greatest thinkers of the west Descartes said, I think therefore I am Cogito Ergo Sum. Descartes is the father of modern western philosophy. The mystics have said just the opposite, I dont think therefore I am. Because when thinking ceases, only then does one know who one is. In a non-thinking state of consciousness, one realizes ones being, not by thinking. Western man is rich as far as things are concerned, but is very poor as far as soul is concerned. East has denied science, it has denied the world of objective reality. It says the world is illusory; it is Maya. How can we create science out of an illusory world? Mystics are one-dimensional people. As far as inner world is concerned, he is the greatest master, master of the inner, but he remains one-dimensional. He attains to bliss, peace silence but does not contribute to the world in any objective way. Albert Einstein contributed to the world in a very objective way, but he cannot contribute anything of the inner. He suffered his whole life because he was the man who proposed that atom bomb should be made. He enriched the outer world but without inner growth, one remains lopsided. One can possess many things but one cannot possess himself. One has all that can make one happy, but one is not happy, because happiness cannot be derived from possessions. Happiness is an awakening of our soul. 8/13, Second Floor, Arya Nagar, Kanpur 208 002 Ph: (0512) 2551251-52; 9415101244

Science of the soul is science of the within. Scientist explores about who created the world. A spiritual person explores his interiority to know who he is. Who am I? Through Science of Soul our energies are transformed, the crude energy that is destructive is converted into creative energies. The energy in itself is neutral; it is how we use it that it becomes either destructive or creative. Atomic energy can be used to destroy and to create. Similarly, the energy within in the form of anger, lust, possessiveness, greed can be transformed to be creative, meditative. In Sanskrit Science is called Avidya. Why? Because science knows only the shadow world. It misses the soul. Science of Soul is called Vidya. Science of Soul concerns no-mind. Science concerns our mind and matter but no soul. In life, there are three things: One- The objective world, the world of things. Beyond the objective is the opening of another world- the world of subjective. The objective is the world of science, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The objective is very clear because naturally we are born perfectly able to see the objective. The subjective has to be explored; no body is born with a vision of subjective. The subjective has to be explored; one has to learn what it is; one has to taste it by and by and move into it by and by. The world of music, poetry, art the world of any creativity is the world of subjective. The man who starts moving inwards becomes more poetic, more aesthetic. The scientist lives with things; the poet lives with persons. The scientist is not at all aware of what surrounds him. He may be able to know about the moon and about Mars and about the stars far, far away, but he is completely oblivious of his own inwardness. In fact, the more he becomes concerned with faraway things, the more and more he becomes oblivious of himself. The poet, the painter, the dancer, the musician they live in the subjective- they know they are persons. For a poet even a tree is a person, even animals are people, for a scientist even a man or woman is nothing but an object. Objective is the world of Science, Subjective is the world of art and the third is transcendental. It goes beyond both, it is neither subjective nor objective, and in it, both are implied, it is higher. One has to move from things to thought and then from thought to the thinker. Things are the world of Science, thought is the world of art, and the thinker is the world of religion. The first circumference is the world of things, the second of thoughts and the third is our being is nothing but consciousness. Science is based upon law of causality. Science cannot believe in the existence of soul, in consciousness, in the existence of God because these are non-mechanical phenomenon. Laws govern the world of the outer. The world of the inner knows only freedom. Consciousness knows no laws. Matter needs laws. 8/13, Second Floor, Arya Nagar, Kanpur 208 002 Ph: (0512) 2551251-52; 9415101244

Consciousness can exist only in absolute freedom. Science goes on discovering laws because it deals only with dead matter. Science has not yet encountered consciousness. Consciousness is beyond the scope of Science. Science can discover laws, it cannot discover freedom. The material existence is mechanical. There is no freedom, there cannot be, because there is no one to be free. Freedom needs consciousness. There is no consciousness in hydrogen, no consciousness in Oxygen, they simply follow a routine. This routine we call law, because there is no exception to it. A law is a certain behavior without exception. The exception is not allowed in the objective world. Spiritual man lives in freedom, he dies in freedom. His body can be killed but his soul cannot be touched. Science cannot accept this because science means laws. According to scientific attitude, laws bind everything in existence. Once scientist knows the law, he can do anything with the matter. Matter cannot go against law. Therefore, science has always denied existence of soul. To accept the soul is to accept that something is there that transcends law. That is very destructive to scientific attitude. However, after the advent of atomic physics scientists have reached into matter and have found that in the inner realm of matter old laws are defied. Albert Einstein stumbled upon and found that laws and logic that prevailed during Newton do not hold good anymore in the microscopic world. Therefore old laws have been replaced by the new laws but their would be no exception. Science cannot come upon anything that will be freedom. Outer science can help immensely to reduce our sufferings and misery at the physical and biological level. But the real anguish is not at the physical level. Food, shelter, employment can be tackled by Science. Poverty can be removed if the political system and the politicians have the will to act. The real existential questions cannot be solved by outer science. It is only within the realm of Science of soul. Objective Science can deal with matters of objective world and the subjective science can deal with inward matters. One will take care of our physiology, biology. The other will take care of our psychology and our ultimate centre: the soul. That is the Science of Soul.

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