Mystic Insights in Science & Spirituality
Science and spirituality are different areas
in the sense that knowledge of science may be
learnt from books, its understanding may come
steadily, if not speedily but discerment of
mysticism may not occur. It is an experience,
an insight and an intution, which takes its own
time to come.
The mechanist, fragmented world view is being
reviewed and augmented by the organic world
view of mysticism, which is gaining global
popularity. One may venture to gauge essential
harmony between science and spirituality for
modern science reaches beyond the limits of
technology. Like Plato,s geometry
("God is geometer") it can lead to spiritual
knowledge and self-realisation.
Knowledge that science imparts is, as Buddhists
call it, 'relative'. It measures, quantifies,
classifies and analyses. But, "has only limited
range of applicability". On the other hand,
mystics aim at direct experience of reality,
which is not only beyond intellectual thinking
but also beyond sensory perception.
This knowledge comes through meditation or
mystical consciousness, which is a "potential
form of consciousness entirely different".
"it is a heightened state of concentrated
awarenes where one is neither tense nor
hurried and certainly never slack.
And exploration of the parallels between
scientific postulates and mystic insights
and intutions can be drawn in many cases,
out of which some of them are:-
Sand,rocks,water and air are composed of vibrating
molecules and atoms. When cosmic rays fall upon
them, they react and destroy each other,s particles.
It is a sort of ' Cosmic Dance of Energy'.
Ancient Hindu wisdom depicts it as the
'Dance of Shiva as AdiDev.
In connection with the description of hadrons
in particle physics, " Buddhists have conceived
an object as an event not as a thing or substance".
What mystics realised through their meditative
insight has now been established through experiments.
The 'bootstrap' hypothesis implying that subatomic
particles reflect the impossibility of separating
scientific observation from observed phenomena,
when pushed to the extreme, convey to us that
structures we observe in nature are only creations
of our own mind.
Aswaghosha has expressed the same
idea in his awakening of Faith:
"All phenomena in the world are
nothing but the illusory manifestation
of the mind and have no reality of their own".
Eastern spiritual heads call this as Maya,
Buddhists call it as Avidya.
So we do find echoes of mysticism in the depths
of basic tenets of science. Mystic insights are
borne out by modern scientific theories indicating
essential harmony between science and spirituality.
Science can be like spirituality - " a path with a
heart, a way to knowledge and self realisation.
The ambit of science terminates at a point, but
that of spirituality goes much beyond where it
intuits and churns out concepts which science might
not be able to verify in order to accept or reject
them.
Werner Heisenberg aptly said, "it is quite
true that in the history of human thinking the
most fruitful developments frequently takes place at
those points where two different lines of thought meet".
Today, however, "Deep insights offered by mystics-
that were accepted solely on faith - are now being
verified through Science".
in the sense that knowledge of science may be
learnt from books, its understanding may come
steadily, if not speedily but discerment of
mysticism may not occur. It is an experience,
an insight and an intution, which takes its own
time to come.
The mechanist, fragmented world view is being
reviewed and augmented by the organic world
view of mysticism, which is gaining global
popularity. One may venture to gauge essential
harmony between science and spirituality for
modern science reaches beyond the limits of
technology. Like Plato,s geometry
("God is geometer") it can lead to spiritual
knowledge and self-realisation.
Knowledge that science imparts is, as Buddhists
call it, 'relative'. It measures, quantifies,
classifies and analyses. But, "has only limited
range of applicability". On the other hand,
mystics aim at direct experience of reality,
which is not only beyond intellectual thinking
but also beyond sensory perception.
This knowledge comes through meditation or
mystical consciousness, which is a "potential
form of consciousness entirely different".
"it is a heightened state of concentrated
awarenes where one is neither tense nor
hurried and certainly never slack.
And exploration of the parallels between
scientific postulates and mystic insights
and intutions can be drawn in many cases,
out of which some of them are:-
Sand,rocks,water and air are composed of vibrating
molecules and atoms. When cosmic rays fall upon
them, they react and destroy each other,s particles.
It is a sort of ' Cosmic Dance of Energy'.
Ancient Hindu wisdom depicts it as the
'Dance of Shiva as AdiDev.
In connection with the description of hadrons
in particle physics, " Buddhists have conceived
an object as an event not as a thing or substance".
What mystics realised through their meditative
insight has now been established through experiments.
The 'bootstrap' hypothesis implying that subatomic
particles reflect the impossibility of separating
scientific observation from observed phenomena,
when pushed to the extreme, convey to us that
structures we observe in nature are only creations
of our own mind.
Aswaghosha has expressed the same
idea in his awakening of Faith:
"All phenomena in the world are
nothing but the illusory manifestation
of the mind and have no reality of their own".
Eastern spiritual heads call this as Maya,
Buddhists call it as Avidya.
So we do find echoes of mysticism in the depths
of basic tenets of science. Mystic insights are
borne out by modern scientific theories indicating
essential harmony between science and spirituality.
Science can be like spirituality - " a path with a
heart, a way to knowledge and self realisation.
The ambit of science terminates at a point, but
that of spirituality goes much beyond where it
intuits and churns out concepts which science might
not be able to verify in order to accept or reject
them.
Werner Heisenberg aptly said, "it is quite
true that in the history of human thinking the
most fruitful developments frequently takes place at
those points where two different lines of thought meet".
Today, however, "Deep insights offered by mystics-
that were accepted solely on faith - are now being
verified through Science".
