Saturday, 10 March 2018

Science and Religion in Swami Vivekananda


Science and Religion in Swami Vivekananda

 “Search for the final unity which is alike the goal of science and religion.”
“I want the ‘why’ of everything and leave the how to children.”

Swami Vivekananda was a multifaceted personality and presented varied persona to various people – a spiritual giant, a prophet of universal religion, the foremost apostle of Sri Ramakrishna, a dynamic thinker, a philosopher and to some even a patriot saint. In him coalesced action and contemplation, east and west, science and spirituality, and poetry and philosophy. Swamiji was fundamentally a man of God with a unique capacity to traverse the whole range of reality from the subtle realms of the mystics to the struggle, trials and tribulations of the world.  His was a fearless, all embracing and dynamic religion. His stress was always   for that universality where reason and intuition, science and religion will go hand in hand.

“Science and religion will meet and shake hands. Poetry and philosophy will become friends. This will be the religion of the future, and if we can work it out, we may be sure that it will be for all times and peoples. This is the one way that will prove acceptable to modern science, for it has almost come to it."

“Science and religion are both attempts to help us out of the bondage; only religion is the more ancient, and we have the superstition that it is the more holy. In a way it is, because it makes morality a vital point, and science does not.”

Swamiji with a conviction firmly based on realization knew that an earnest search for truth by whatever means is bound to fructify over time. Science as long as it is a search for the verities of our universe and not just mere problem solving is bound to have some parallelism with the spiritual endeavor.

Swamiji accepted and honored or rather embodied the spirit of the age demanding a rationalistic and scientific approach. “Materialism prevails .. today. You may pray for the salvation of the modern skeptics, but they do not yield, they want reason. The salvation .. depends on a rationalistic religion, and Advaita -- the non - duality, the Oneness, the idea of the Impersonal God -- is the only religion that can have any hold on any intellectual people.”

It is the age of reason, skepticism and experimentation. Perhaps Swamiji knew about it more than anyone else, for in his own language he had “fought every inch of the way”. Religion has to submit itself to scientific enquiry, “If a religion is destroyed by such investigations, it was then all the time useless, unworthy superstition; and the sooner it goes the better. I am thoroughly convinced that its destruction would be the best thing that could happen. All that is dross will be taken off, no doubt, but the essential parts of religion will emerge triumphant out of this investigation. Not only will it be made scientific -- as scientific, at least, as any of the conclusions of physics or chemistry -- but will have greater strength, because physics or chemistry has no internal mandate to vouch for its truth, which religion has.”

Swamiji’s stress on science can be delineated within three broad area.
  1. The sources of knowledge – similar to science and spirituality
  2. The final destination of all enquiry/knowledge
  3. Word of caution against orthodoxy and fundamentalism on both sides.

 The sources of knowledge

Swami Vivekananda had stressed that all sources of knowledge be it science or religion has similar ontology. All knowledge needs to be rationalised under three principles, the principles of induction, principle of explanation from its own nature and the principle of evolution.

"The particulars are to be referred to the general, the general to the more general, and everything at last to the universal, the last concept that we have, the most universal -- that of existence. Existence is the most universal concept."

"A second explanation of knowledge is that the explanation of a thing must come from inside and not from outside. There had been the belief that, when a man threw up a stone and it fell, some demon dragged it down. Many occurrences which are really natural phenomena are attributed by people to unnatural beings. That a ghost dragged down the stone was an explanation that was not in the thing itself, it was an explanation from outside; but the second explanation of gravitation is something in the nature of the stone; the explanation is coming from inside. This tendency you will find throughout modern thought; in one word, what is meant by science is that the explanations of things are in their own nature, and that no external beings or existences are required to explain what is going on in the universe. The chemist never requires demons, or ghosts, or anything of that sort, to explain his phenomena. The physicist never requires anyone of these to explain the things he knows, nor does any other scientist. And this is one of the features of science which I mean to apply to religion. In this religions are found wanting and that is why they are crumbling into pieces. Every science wants its explanations from inside, from the very nature of things; and the religions are not able to supply this."

"What is the difference between science and common knowledge? Go out into the streets in the dark, and if something unusual is happening there, ask one of the passers - by what is the cause of it. It is ten to one that he will tell you it is a ghost causing the phenomenon. He is always going after ghosts and spirits outside, because it is the nature of ignorance to seek for causes outside of effects. If a stone falls, it has been thrown by a devil or a ghost, says the ignorant man, but the scientific man says it is the law of nature, the law of gravitation."

"What is the fight between science and religion everywhere? Religions are encumbered with such a mass of explanations which come from outside -- one angel is in charge of the sun, another of the moon, and so on ad infinitum. Every change is caused by a spirit, the one common point of agreement being that they are all outside the thing. Science means that the cause of a thing is sought out by the nature of the thing itself. As step by step science is progressing, it has taken the explanation of natural phenomena out of the hands of spirits and angels. Because Advaitism has done likewise in spiritual matters, it is the most scientific religion. This universe has not been created by any extra - cosmic God, nor is it the work of any outside genius. It is self - creating, self - dissolving, self - manifesting, One Infinite Existence, the Brahman. Tattvamasi Shvetaketo --"That thou art, O Shvetaketu!"

"Another idea connected with this, the manifestation of the same principle, that the explanation of everything comes from inside it, is the modern law of evolution. The whole meaning of evolution is simply that the nature of a thing is reproduced, that the effect is nothing but the cause in another form, that all the potentialities of the effect were present in the cause, that the whole of creation is but an evolution and not a creation. That is to say, every effect is a reproduction of a preceding cause, changed only by the circumstances, and thus it is going on throughout the universe, and we need not go outside the universe to seek the causes of these changes; they are within."

"Now there are two principles of knowledge. The one principle is that we know by referring the particular to the general, and the general to the universal; and the second is that anything of which the explanation is sought is to be explained so far as possible from its own nature."

"All human knowledge proceeds out of experience; we cannot know anything except by experience. All our reasoning is based upon generalised experience, all our knowledge is but harmonised experience. Looking around us, what do we find? A continuous change. The plant comes out of the seed, grows into the tree, completes the circles, and comes back to the seed. The animal comes, lives a certain time, dies, and completes the circle. So does man. The mountains slowly but surely crumble away, the rivers slowly but surely dry up, rains come out of the sea, and go back to the sea. Everywhere circles are being completed, birth, growth, development, and decay following each other with mathematical precision. This is our everyday experience. Inside of it all, behind all this vast mass of what we call life, of millions of forms and shapes, millions upon millions of varieties, beginning from the lowest atom to the highest spiritualised man, we find existing a certain unity. Every day we find that the wall that was thought to be dividing one thing and another is being broken down, and all matter is coming to be recognised by modern science as one substance, manifesting in different ways and in various forms; the one life that runs through all like a continuous chain, of which all these various forms represent the links, link after link, extending almost infinitely, but of the same one chain. This is what is called evolution."

And then to him Advaita was the only substratum acceptable to the rationalist and the scientist. The foundation of oneness or wholeness can be only glue that will cement together the infinite variety of spiritual search and practice. “Thus you see that this, and this alone, and none else, can be the only scientific religion. And with all the prattle about science that is going on daily at the present time in modern half - educated India, with all the talk about rationalism and reason that I hear every day, I expect that whole sects of you will come over and dare to be Advaitists, and dare to preach it to the world in the words of Buddha, [Sanskrit]--"For the good of many, for the happiness of many." If you do not, I take you for cowards. If you cannot get over your cowardice, if your fear is your excuse, allow the same liberty to others, do not try to break up the poor idol - worshipper, do not call him a devil, do not go about preaching to every man that does not agree entirely with you. Know first, that you are cowards yourselves, and if society frightens you, if your own superstitions of the past frighten you so much, how much more will these superstitions frighten and bind down those who are ignorant? That is the Advaita position. Have mercy on others. Would to God that the whole world were Advaitists tomorrow, not only in theory, but in realisation. But if that cannot be, let us do the next best thing; let us take the ignorant by the hand, lead them always step by step just as they can go, and know that every step in all religious growth in India has been progressive. It is not from bad to good, but from good to better.”

"When the scientific teacher asserts that all things are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God of whom you hear in the Upanishads: "As the one fire entering into the universe expresses Itself in various forms, even so that One Soul is expressing Itself in every soul and yet is infinitely more besides?" Do you not see whither science is tending? ….. We find that searching through the mind we at last come to that Oneness, that Universal One, the Internal Soul of everything, the Essence and Reality of everything, the Ever - free, the Ever - blissful, the Ever - existing. Through material science we come to the same Oneness. Science today is telling us that all things are but the manifestation of one energy which is the sum total of everything which exists, and the trend of humanity is towards freedom and not towards bondage. Why should men be moral? Because through morality is the path towards freedom, and immorality leads to bondage.”

Then why religion?

"This universe of ours, the universe of the senses, the rational, the intellectual, is bounded on both sides by the illimitable, the unknowable, the ever unknown. Herein is the search, herein are the inquiries, here are the facts; from this comes the light which is known to the world as religion. Essentially, however, religion belongs to the supersensuous and not to the sense plane. It is beyond all reasoning and is not on the plane of intellect. It is a vision, an inspiration, a plunge into the unknown and unknowable, making the unknowable more than the known, for it can never be "known". This search has been in human mind, as I believe, from the very beginning of humanity. There cannot have been human reasoning and intellect in any period of the world's history without this struggle, this search beyond."

"Take anything before you, the most material thing -- take one of the most material sciences, as chemistry or physics, astronomy or biology -- study it, push the study forward and forward, and the gross forms will begin to melt and become finer and finer, until they come to a point where you are bound to make a tremendous leap from these material things into the immaterial. The gross melts into the fine, physics into metaphysics, in every department of knowledge."

"Life will be a desert, human life will be vain, if we cannot know the beyond. …. It does not consist in the amount of money in your pocket, or the dress you wear, or the house you live in, but in the wealth of spiritual thought in your brain. That is what makes for human progress, that is the source of all material and intellectual progress, the motive power behind, the enthusiasm that pushes mankind forward."

The final destination of all enquiry/knowledge

The final goal to all mystics is to realize the wholeness, to lose oneself into a transcendental ‘I’ or put simply to break the thralldom of the senses and go beyond its field of operation. The route is from instinct to reason to inspiration, subconscious to conscious to superconscious.  The senses and reason is the tool albeit a necessary one, but not the end. “The senses cheat you day and night. Vedanta found that out ages ago; modern science is just discovering the same fact.”

“The sun reflected from millions of globules of water appears to be millions of suns, and in each globule is a miniature picture of the sun - form; so all these souls are but reflections and not real. They are not the real "I" which is the God of this universe, the one undivided Being of the universe. And all these little different beings, men and animal etc. are but reflections, and not real. They are simply illusory reflections upon Nature. There is but one Infinite Being in the universe, and that Being appears as you and I; but this appearance of divisions is after all a delusion. He has not been divided, but only appears to be divided. This apparent division is caused by looking at Him through the network of time, space, and causation. When I look at God through the network of time, space, and causation, I see Him as the material world. When I look at Him from a little higher plane, yet through the same network, I see Him as an animal, a little higher as a man, a little higher as a god, but yet He is the One Infinite Being of the universe, and that Being we are. I am That, and you are That. Not parts of It, but the whole of It..... You cannot see your own face except in a mirror, and so the Self cannot see Its own nature until It is reflected, and this whole universe therefore is the Self trying to realise Itself. This reflection is thrown back first from the protoplasm, then from plants and animals, and so on and on from better and better reflectors, until the best reflector, the perfect man, is reached -- just as a man who, wanting to see his face, looks first in a little pool of muddy water, and sees just an outline; then he comes to clear water, and sees a better image; then to a piece of shining metal, and sees a still better image; and at last to a looking - glass, and sees himself reflected as he is. Therefore the perfect man is the highest reflection on that Being who is both subject and object. You now find why man instinctively worships everything, and how perfect men are instinctively worshipped as God in every country. You may talk as you like, but it is they who are bound to be worshipped. That is why men worship Incarnations, such as Christ or Buddha. They are the most perfect manifestations of the eternal Self. They are much higher than all the conceptions of God that you or I can make. A perfect man is much higher than such conceptions. In him the circle becomes complete; the subject and the object become one."

“We find that searching through the mind we at last come to that Oneness, that Universal One, the Internal Soul of everything, the Essence and Reality of everything, the Ever - free, the Ever - blissful, the Ever - existing. Through material science we come to the same Oneness. Science today is telling us that all things are but the manifestation of one energy which is the sum total of everything which exists, and the trend of humanity is towards freedom and not towards bondage.”

"What is the goal? Nowadays it is asserted that man is infinitely progressing, forward and forward, and there is no goal of perfection to attain to. Ever approaching, never attaining, whatever that may mean and however wonderful it may be, it is absurd on the face of it. Is there any motion in a straight line? A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle, it returns to the starting point. You must end where you begin; and you began in God, you must go back to God. What remains? Detail work. Through eternity you have to do the detail work."

"Are we to discover new truths of religion as we go on? Yea and nay. In the first place, we cannot know anything more of religion, it has all been known. In all religions of the world you will find it claimed that there is a unity within us. Being one with divinity, there cannot be any further progress in that sense. Knowledge means finding this unity. I see you as men and women, and this is variety. It becomes scientific knowledge when I group you together and call you human beings. Take the science of chemistry, for instance. Chemists are seeking to resolve all known substances into their original elements, and if possible, to find the one element from which all these are derived. The time may come when they will find one element that is the source of all other elements. Reaching that, they can go further; the science of chemistry will have become perfect. So it is with the science of religion. If we can discover this perfect unity, there cannot be any further progress."

"Can such a unity be found? In India the attempt has been made from the earliest times to reach a science of religion and philosophy .... We regard religion and philosophy as but two aspects of one thing which must equally be grounded in reason and scientific truth."

"When a kettle of water is coming to the boil, if you watch the phenomena, you find first one bubble rising, and then another and so on, until at last they all join, and a tremendous commotion takes place. This world is very similar. Each individual is like a bubble, and the nations, resemble many bubbles. Gradually these nations are joining, and I am sure the day will come when separation will vanish and that Oneness to which we are all going will become manifest. A time must come when every man will be as intensely practical in the scientific world as in the spiritual, and then that Oneness, the harmony of Oneness, will pervade the whole world. The whole of mankind will become Jivanmuktas -- free whilst living. We are all struggling towards that one end through our jealousies and hatreds, through our love and co - operation. A tremendous stream is flowing towards the ocean carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss."

Word of caution against orthodoxy and fundamentalism

Swamiji had cautioned against the two extremes, superstition and scientific Church and its necessary concomitant inquisition. For the religious seekers his voice was that of a fearless and robust explorer.

“Stick to your reason until you reach something higher; and you will know it to be higher, because it will not jar with reason. The stage beyond consciousness is inspiration (Samadhi); but never mistake hysterical trances for the real thing. It is a terrible thing to claim this inspiration falsely, to mistake instinct for inspiration. There is no external test for inspiration, we know it ourselves; our guardian against mistake is negative -- the voice of reason. All religion is going beyond reason, but reason is the only guide to get there. Instinct is like ice, reason is the water, and inspiration is the subtlest form or vapour; one follows the other."

"Religion is above reason, supernatural. Faith is not belief, it is the grasp on the Ultimate, an illumination. First hear, then reason and find out all that reason can give about the Atman; let the flood of reason flow over It, then take what remains. If nothing remains, thank God you have escaped a superstition."

From the scientists and rationalist he expected curiosity, wonder and expansion and the fearlessness of not resting till the restless striving reaches its culmination. He shuddered at the greed, regimentation, heartlessness and cold instrumentality of the machine based desire inebriated civilization. He thundered against all supercilious derision of modernity.

"If people should laugh at religion because most religions declare that men must believe in mythologies taught by such and such a prophet, they ought to laugh more at these moderns. In modern times, if a man quotes a Moses or a Buddha or a Christ, he is laughed at; but let him give the name of a Huxley, a Tyndall, or a Darwin, and it is swallowed without salt. "Huxley has said it", that is enough for many. We are free from superstitions indeed! That was a religious superstition, and this is a scientific superstition; only, in and through that superstition came life - giving ideas of spirituality; in and through this modern superstition come lust and greed. That superstition was worship of God, and this superstition is worship of filthy lucre, of fame and power. That is the difference."

"In place of ancient superstitions they have erected modern superstitions, in place of the old Popes of religion they have installed modern Popes of science."

Intuitive Leaps

All philosophers of science would agree with Swami Vivekananda when he stresses that we cannot know the outer or inner world with the instrumentation of the mind. We discover laws or certain order in repetitive events.   Swamiji would ofcourse go further and add we cannot know, for the mind itself is in the relative plane but we can be. Spirituality is being and becoming, it is realisation.

The act of discovery of new truths,  of new laws is poorly understood till date. Most agree that these are flashes of illuminations or intuitive leaps. Swami Vivekananda was a robust and bold thinker. A pure mind it is said reflects the universe in its pure form. His interpretation of Ramakrishna’s thought, exegesis of ancient scriptures and expiration of his own realizations have left behind many startling views whose veracity science was to arrive at a much later date. These flashes of intuition warrants a lot of research.  

Matter, energy, velocity and mass

Vivekananda had arrived at the matter energy equivalence through the ancient categories of Akasha and Prana. Akasha being the sum total of all energy/matter and Akasha being the sum total of all forces.  It would not be out place to narrate an interesting episode.
One of the foremost scientist of his day a living legend Nicola Tesla used to attend his classes in New York and was “charmed to hear about the Vedantic Prana and Akasha and the Kalpas, which according to him are the only theories modern science can entertain."

"Mr. Tesla thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy," Swamiji wrote to Mr. Sturdy on February 13. "I am going to see him next week, to get this new mathematical demonstration. In that case, the Vedantic cosmology will be placed on the surest of foundations. I am working a good deal now upon the cosmology and eschatology of Vedanta. I clearly see their perfect unison with modern science." It is highly probable that he met with disappointment.

Nikola Tesla was of the firm conviction that matter and energy were two entirely and eternally distinct entities. Like all nineteenth century physicists, he believed that atoms were, as Newton had said, "solid, hard, impenetrable and unbreakable." He believed, further, that electricity was a force that acted upon the atom from the outside, thereby producing electric currents. He did not believe and did not want to believe that force and matter were interchangeable and that both were "reducible to potential energy." Swamiji was far ahead of him.

Just the same, Nikola Tesla was, as Swamiji said, charmed with the ideas of Vedantic cosmology and, up to a point, was surely in accord with them; nor did he ever forget them. In the last years of his life, when he had finally conceded that mass could be converted into energy, he wrote a paper on the incalculable power at the command of man. In this paper, a portion of which was published for the first time in his biography, Prodigal Genius, by John J. O'Neill, he said:

"Long ago [Man] recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life - giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
             Can Man control this grandest, most awe - inspiring of all processes in nature?.. If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural.... He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms. (Such powers] would place him beside, his Creator, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny."

Swamiji again had stressed “When you look at the universe, remember that we can reduce it to matter or to force. If we increase the velocity, the mass decreases. ...On the other hand, we can increase the mass and decrease the velocity. ...We may almost come to a point where all the mass will entirely disappear.”

“Solidity, hardness, or any other state of matter can be proved to be the result of motion. Increase of vortex motion imparted to fluids gives them the force of solids. A mass of air in vortex motion, as in a tornado, becomes solid - like and by its impact breaks or cuts through solids. A thread of a spider's web, if it could be moved at almost infinite velocity, would be as strong as an iron chain and would cut through an oak tree. Looking at it in this way, it would be easier to prove that what we call matter does not exist. But the other way cannot be proved.”

Big bang and big crunch
Here is what Swamiji had to say much before big bang and the expanding universe and big crunch. “So this universe will go back to its causes, and again its materials will come together and take form, like the wave that goes down, rises again, and takes shape. The acts of going back to causes and coming out again, taking form, are called in Sanskrit Sankocha and Vikasha, which mean shrinking and expanding. The whole universe, as it were, shrinks, and then it expands again. To use the more accepted words of modern science, they are involved and evolved.” He also had added interestingly that he was'nt sure whether it is one universe exapnasion and contraction or simultaneous multiple expansions and contraction in different universes.

The spherical universe and Minkowski geometry
The modern concept of the spherical nature of the universe was enigmatically hinted at by Swamiji "A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle, it returns to the starting point. You must end where you begin". Many have found stunning similarity with the idea of space - time continuum of Hermann Minkowski in Vivekananda's idea of space time causation network. Minkowski's continuum it may be mentioned have played a very significant role in Relativity theory.

The relativity of space-time
Swamiji had firmly stressed the relativity of time space and causation. Einstein and the theory of relativity came much later, though ofcourse Einstein denied the relativity of causation.  Einstein in his last days was working on the hypothesis of the  universe as names and forms in the web of space-time continuum. Maya it may be mentioned as per Swamiji is time-space and causation it is Nama-Rupa i.e. Name and form. Interestingly modern quantum physics is putting a big question mark on strict causality. Schrödinger was to speculate much later than Swamiji about the Atman=Brahma postulate as the closest acceptable to quantum physics.

Swamiji's statement that we are all vibrations or 'spandan' in different frequencies in the web of time-space-causation sounds uncannily similar to the concept wave particle duality which came much later in quantum physics.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Swamiji has many a time asserted that a yogi who realizes the ultimate passes through the whole history of the race in his lifetime. This has remarkable similarity with the much later principle of paleontology which states ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

The conception of wholeness or oneness in material, mental and spiritual plane inspires and explains perhaps with much more beauty and simplicity than the mathematical formulations of the modern physics. The simplicity and clarity and the power of the poetry of the advaitic oneness can only perhaps be brought forth in Swami Vivekananda's language,  "Existence showing us the manifoldness of the universe; in substance, this universe is one. So long as any one thinks that there are two ultimate realities, he is mistaken. When he has come to know that there is but one, he is right. This is what is being proved to us every day, on the physical plane, on the mental plane, and also on the spiritual plane. Today it has been demonstrated that you and I, the sun, the moon, and the stars are but the different names of different spots in the same ocean of matter, and that this matter is continuously changing in its configuration. This particle of energy that was in the sun several months ago may be in the human being now; tomorrow it may be in an animal, the day after tomorrow it may be in a plant. It is ever coming and going. It is all one unbroken, infinite mass of matter, only differentiated by names and forms. One point is called the sun; another, the moon; another, the stars; another, man; another, animal; another, plant; and so on. And all these names are fictitious; they have no reality, because the whole is a continuously changing mass of matter. This very same universe, from another standpoint, is an ocean of thought, where each one of us is a point called a particular mind. You are a mind, I am a mind, everyone is a mind; and the very same universe viewed from the standpoint of knowledge, when the eyes have been cleared of delusions, when the mind has become pure, appears to be the unbroken Absolute Being, the ever pure, the unchangeable, the immortal."

Spirituality is also a field of empirical and experimental knowledge or rather supersensuous experience. It transcends the senses and reason but firmly basing itself on these. Perhaps scientific spirituality and spiritualised science will converge, where science will no more have its heartless instrumentality and objectivity in looking at human beings and spirituality will lose its long accumulated package of superstition and weakness - a convergence which will result in a  Godward passion and a man ward love. Swamiji lived to make it a reality and in his own words will not rest  till the world is one with God.



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