Is Modern Science a Challenge to Religion? (Continued)

It is in the Taittiriya Upanishad that we hear of the evolutionary process of the cosmos. Tasmadva etasmadatmana akashah sambhutah: From the Universal Absolute, the Selfhood of the cosmos, space emanated. Here, we must realise that even space has a connection with the Absolute. Akashadvayuh: The principle of air emanated from the vibrations of space. Vayoragnih; Friction created by the movement of air created heat, which is fire. Agnerapah: The condensation of the heat of fire produced the liquid condition of the world, which is water. The solidification of water became the earth principle, Adbhyah prithivi. Prithivya oshadhayah: From the earth arise all herbs, plantations and trees, which are the foodstuff of animals and human beings. Oshadhibhyannam: All that we eat arises from the plants and trees and vegetables and such edible articles produced by the earth. Annatpurushah: The human arises as a latecomer in the process of evolution. This physical body is annamaya, constituted of the foodstuff which is the earth principle, which again is an evolutionary consequence of the water principle, that again of the fire principle, the fire principle of the air principle, the air principle of the space principle, and the space principle is rooted in the Universal Existence.

So, you can know your connection with the Ultimate Reality. We are sunk deep in Ultimate Being. We are an automatic evolute in the lowest form of its expression, in its physical, material form, which is the spatio-temporal expression of the non-spatial and non-temporal Supreme Being which is Ultimate Consciousness: satyam jnanamanantam brahma.

Lofty is this concept. Today, the more understanding type of physical scientists have practically stumbled upon this great concept of the Upanishads. Mathematicians who declared that the world is only equations, point events, and waves of probability, or a continuum of some indescribable stuff which is incapable of description, have inadvertently been forced to accept that existence is indivisible. This conclusion should be drawn by the consciousness of the scientist himself.

The great physicist, Sir Arthur Eddington, who would not accept that there is God or such a thing as consciousness, fell upon this acceptance inadvertently, unconsciously, as it were. In his great book "The Nature of the Physical World," he utters a gospel truth: "The stuff of the world is consciousness."

Science misunderstood is a threat to religion; if you consider it only as a technological process of flying with great speed and working through satellite, television and internet, that would be a poor concept of science. Science is a noble investigative procedure, which can take us to the depths of the secrets of life, if dispassionately we go with it.

Here is an unexpected discovery of science that the stuff of the world has to be consciousness. Why is it so? It is because the world has to be known in order that it may be accepted to exist. Who is telling you that the world is existing? Your consciousness is telling this. How does the consciousness know that the world is existing, unless this consciousness is pervading the world of perception? The imbibition of the very structure of the physical world into the structure of consciousness is the reason why we believe in the existence of a world, and that it is ours. So, there is finally no conflict between the highest discoveries of science and the noble aspirations of religion.

By "religion" we are not meaning Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism – this "ism", that "ism", and all that. These are all designated denominational forms of the true meaning of religion. Religion is the aspiration of the soul for its ultimate destiny. It is a search of the individual for the Absolute. It is a longing of the spirit within us for God Almighty. It has nothing to do with any "ism", and no one can be free from this eternal longing for perfection, which may better be called spiritual aspiration rather than a religious longing, because of the abuse of the word ‘religion’ in modern times, under historical circumstances, and in the studies in schools and colleges.

People who are now considering themselves as scientists and very advanced in logical thinking pooh-pooh religion, thinking it is an old grandmother's story, because their idea of religion is so poor, as is their concept of science. There is a tragedy that has befallen every one of us in our not being able to be precise in our knowledge of things, whether it is scientific or religious.

There is no conflict. There was a time in the Middle Ages when physical science appeared to be clashing with the theological doctrines of the church. The church excommunicated many scientists, and they were punished with severe indictments from the Pope. An inquisition was set up in the Middle Ages – for us, very unthinkable, indeed. People were burnt, thrown into the flames by dogmatic religious followers, and science retaliated and disconnected itself from the Pope.

Today we are in a different world altogether. The conflict has ceased; at least, it is appearing to be ceasing. Though it was once said, "The East is East and the West is West, and the twain shall never meet," I think today it is attempting to come together, and is meeting. The West and the East wish to shake hands with each other and accept their common heritage as human beings, rather than Westerners and Easterners, scientists and religious followers, seekers of God and seekers of material values.

There are several textbooks written these days, where powerful monographs have gone into the depths of this harmony that is already existing between the external and the universal. Though the external may be different from the internal, it cannot be external to the Universal. The Universal is a transcendent element which rises above both the subjective side and the objective side. We cannot even know that there is anything outside us unless there is a third element which is not ourselves, and not the object that is perceived, also.

Because of the externality of the object of perception and the internality of consciousness, there is no connection between the two, and knowledge is impossible; no one can know that anything is. But there is a transcendent principle. Eastern thought considers this as adhidaiva, a spiritual principle operating as a transcendental element – unknown and unperceivable, but operating between the subjective side and the objective side.

The subjective side is called the adhyatma, the objective is adhibhauta, and the transcendent is adhidaiva. All the three have to work together in order that there may be perception at all. But we are so poor in our understanding that we know little of ourselves, and much less of the world, and nothing at all of this transcendental operation. Gods are behind our eyes and ears, our nose and tongue, and our sensations. These gods which are the denizens of heaven are the operators of this mechanism called the physical body with its sense organs. It is a presumption on the part of the egoistic individual to think that he or she is working. The workers are the great divine beings which are transcendent adhidaivas - gods in heaven, as we call them. But they are invisible. They are invisible because they are neither inside nor outside; they are "above".

Here is a path-finding direction for both science and religion, so that if they work together in harmony they can create a world of joy and satisfaction that life is worth living. Do you want to depart from this world with the tragic feeling that nothing has been achieved? The world has eluded the grasp of everybody. Kings have come, empires rose and fell, and the earth has not changed. It appears to be so because of our wrong evaluation of the historical process. History is actually a natural process of the cosmos. It is the total operation taking place in the whole of creation, even when a little event is taking place somewhere in a corner of the world. Our learned speaker mentioned about quantum mechanics and the discoveries of relativity, etc., which highlighted the astounding truth of sudden and simultaneous action taking place in the universe. Every event is a simultaneous event. It is not taking place yesterday and tomorrow; it is just now, everywhere.

Did not the poet tell us that we cannot touch the petals of a flower in our garden without disturbing the stars in the heavens? It is not poetry; it is the truth. Every event is a universal event. Anything that is taking place anywhere takes place everywhere, and we are living throughout the universe, in all parts of the cosmos. Our individuality is not confined merely to this earth planet. It is everywhere in different parts.

Scientists today have discovered the possibility of worlds within worlds, and the possibility of many worlds, and our being inhabitants of all these worlds simultaneously. "Simultaneously" is the word we have to underline. We are not inhabiting these many worlds in succession – today here, tomorrow somewhere else. At one stroke, in a timeless manner, we inhabit the whole cosmos, and we are world citizens working in different forms. Unknown to our own selves, one part of ourselves is here on this earth performing activities in this way, and another part of our own archetypal nature is in the heaven, even today.

Our higher self in the heaven is pulling us and summoning us: "Come on. You are not here, where you appear to be. You are in the heaven." That is why we are longing for the higher values of life, and we can never be satisfied; we are always unsatisfied because we are not in this world. We are really in some other world – not only in some other world, we are in all the worlds. This universal operation of individuals is a great discovery of modern quantum mechanics, which is quite different from that science which appears to be in conflict with religion. Science has become spirituality; physics has become metaphysics.

This is a wonder toward the end of the twentieth century that we are seeing; we believe that God shall come. The kingdom of heaven is within us; it is within us, because it is everywhere. How can a large kingdom be contained within our little frame of physical existence? It is because the inwardness of our existence is not actually the physical inwardness. The whole universe can be within us.

It is the Chandogya Upanishad which tells us that whatever is happening in the outside world is happening within us. If the sun is shining there, it is shining inside, also. If it is hot outside, it is hot inside, also. If it is raining outside, it is raining inside, also. If there is thunder there, there is thunder here, also. But we are so stupid that we cannot realise these events are taking place within us, commensurate with all the things that are happening outside in the world.

We are the world; thus, the discovery of science today tells us. This is what the great Yoga Vasishtha scripture tells us. This is what the Upanishads tell us. It is not merely the twain of West and East that is coming together; God and man are shaking hands with each other in this vast kingdom of universal creation.