Relevance of Science in Spiritual Knowledge

[dattaswami]

Relevance of Science in Spiritual Knowledge

 

The absolute God is always unimaginable. The human incarnation is the relative God, i.e. unimaginable God existing in an imaginable medium. The relative God should always be identified by the true knowledge preached by Him as per the Veda (Satyam jnaanam…). Science was called as logic (tarka) in ancient times. Science (ancient or modern) is the analysis of the imaginable creation. It cannot help in directly identifying the absolute unimaginable God. But science helps in the identification of the constituents of this imaginable creation, which are likely to be misunderstood as God. Thus, it enables us to negate those imaginable items as God. The Veda says that you can identify God only by rejecting everything in this world that might appear to be God (Neti Neti …). This means that God is identified as the Unimaginable One, since every imaginable entity of this creation is negated as God. Hence, science helps us greatly in spiritual knowledge.

 

The organizers of this conference addressed Me as a ‘spiritual scientist’, meaning that I show spiritualism in science. Actually, the term should be reversed. I should be called as the ‘scientific spiritualist’ since I do scientific analysis in spiritual knowledge. Scientific analysis alone helps Me in rejecting some items of creation, which are treated as God by some ignorant people. Science cannot explain anything about the unimaginable God. But science is helpful in denying every imaginable item of this imaginable world, which might appear to be the unimaginable God. Thus, spiritual knowledge is only science indirectly, since every imaginable item is negated as God, while nothing is spoken about God.

 

For example, soul or awareness or consciousness is thought to be God. But science proves that soul is only a specific work-form of inert energy working in a specific functioning system called as the nervous system. The soul is imaginable energy and cannot be the unimaginable God. You are attributing an unimaginable miraculous nature to the soul when you say that the soul or consciousness is universal. The soul or awareness is confined only to the nerves and the brain in your body. It is not universal. You think that God is all-pervading. You also think that since God thinks, He must be awareness. Hence, you say that awareness must be all-pervading. All this is chain of false logical concepts. God is beyond space and hence, He is not all-pervading. He knows everything (Omniscient) but for this, He need not be all-pervading. God being unimaginable can know everything due to His unimaginable power, even without pervading everything. Similarly, God thinks, but for this, He need not be awareness. The unimaginable God can think due to His unimaginable power. “Since He thinks, He must be awareness and since He knows everything, He must be all-pervading”—all this is worldly logic that only applies to all worldly items. God being unimaginable is beyond worldly logic!