Spiritual Science
behind Sri Anand Yoga
Sri Anand Yoga (SAY) is based on the scientific principles of material science as well as on the spiritual science. It is a fusion of both these approaches to find out the ultimate reality of Life. In fact it firmly believes that these two approaches are One.
To understand what is meant by Spiritual Science, let us first separately understand the concept of 'Science' and of 'Spirituality'.
Science
Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. It is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws. A scientific theory must be empirically testable or lead to testable predictions or retrodictions (use present information or ideas to infer or explain a past event or state of affairs) and to make verified predictions and/or retrodictions.
There are six Criteria of Science: Consistent, Observable, Natural, Predictable, Testable, and Tentative.
Scientific method makes it absolutely essential to have a completely controlled experiment to test a hypothesis. This becomes impracticable in areas beyond the material world. For example, theories about other supernatural phenomena can never be confirmed or denied. There is no scientific experiment that could confirm their presence. Science attempts to give us a better understanding of the mysteries of the natural world. However it does not give us a final understanding.
Following five major constraints are inherent in the scientific investigations
1 Scientific investigation is often constrained by the extent of existing knowledge. Developing a hypothesis and designing an experiment is based on current human knowledge. However, until viruses were discovered many diseases could not be explained e.g. smallpox. 2 Design of experiment is limited to observation method and instrument - e.g. discovery of viruses depended on the discovery of the electron microscope. 3 Data interpretation - research findings are limited by human ability to interpret the results. Wrong interpretations can lead to wrong conclusions e.g. thalidomide was used to treat morning sickness in human pregnancy in the 1950s. It was safely tested on many animals and then wrongly interpreted as safe for humans. However, the drug was not tested on embryos in the womb. This caused limb deformities in babies. The drug was later withdrawn in 1961.
research findings are limited by human ability to interpret the results. Wrong interpretations can lead to wrong conclusions
4 Scientific discoveries are sometimes limited to the present, they may have a limited 'shelf life' - what is true now may not have been true in the past or in the future e.g. penicillin used to be effective against many bacteria
but new strains have evolved that are resistant to penicillin. As changes occur, scientific theories may require updating or revision.
Scientific discoveries may have only limited shelf life
5 Accidental discoveries have contributed significantly to the development of scientific thinking - e.g. the discovery of antibiotic penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming carelessly left a dish of bacteria uncovered and it became contaminated by a fungus. He noticed that the bacteria were killed in areas around the fungus. The fungus produces penicillin which kills the bacteria.
What is Spirituality?
There is considerable amount of confusion or ignorance about the meaning of the term ‘Spirituality’. Spirituality is often confused with being sacred, holy, religious, moral, ethical and many other such things.
Spirituality is often confused with being sacred, holy, religious, moral, ethical and many other such things.
This becomes quite obvious when one searches the internet to find the definition or the meaning of the term ‘spirituality. Popularly ‘Spirituality’ is understood as the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. This is highly inadequate and partially ERRONEOUS understanding.
There is also a confusion about what exactly is 'human spirit' or soul'.
Then there is a wide spectrum of spirituality outside the concept of spirit or soul. For example, Buddhist philosophy does not include the human soul in its spectrum. But still it is considered as part of the spiritual domain. This confusion about the right understanding of the concept of spirituality has greatly hindered the process of scientific investigation into this subject. When the subject is not a defined territory, scientist loses interest in it.
To make our understanding of spirituality simple for the purpose of our enquiry into spiritual maxims while at the same time being true to the central theme of spirituality, we will use the word ‘spirituality’ to mean things related to higher dimensions of our life – higher than the visible measurable physical world falling under the ambit of material science. Spirituality is that field which is not yet directly verifiable through our laboratory equipment (that is, through the methods of material science). Where material world ends, spiritual world begins.
Science of Spirituality
Science of Spirituality deals with the systematic study of higher dimensions of life through the process of observation and analysis and finding out the true origin of things spiritual, their foundation in some deeper power enlivening them and the secret of its effectivity. This is indeed a difficult or rather (apparently) impossible task. To circumvent this difficulty, there is a temptation to take recourse to ‘Faith’. Once we say that we have ‘Faith’ in certain things spiritual, we shut the doors to any scientific study. Or rather, the guise of ‘Faith’ is used to escape the scientific enquiry into any spiritual phenomenon. We will avoid this trap. We will base our enquiry purely on scientific domain.
Scientific Observation
The most essential prerequisite of any scientific enquiry is scientific observation. It means an observation which is unbiased, neutral, objective, and independent of any influences. This cardinal principle applies to material science as well as to spiritual science. We will not get influenced by our religion, ethnic background, nationality or most importantly by our ‘character’. In other words, our observations need to be ‘unbiased’.
Observing Instruments
For the purpose of having any scientific observation, we need scientific ‘observing instruments’. The correctness of our theory very much depends on the accuracy of our apparatus to measure the phenomenon under study. This applies as much to spiritual science as to material science. The observing instruments may differ for material science and for spiritual science, but the underlying principle will apply with equal measure. In the case of material science, the observing instrument may be a barometer or microscope. In the case of spiritual science the observing instruments will differ vastly. Our main observing instrument for spiritual science is mind and higher sense perceptions.
Now here is the catch. How far is our mind a reliable instrument of observation? Is a mind independent and neutral entity (sine qua non - a condition non violable for any scientific experiment) like a laboratory equipment which will give the same result whether Mr A does the experiment or Mr B does it? Isn’t our mind or higher sense perception also limited by its capacity to grasp various events and occurrences as per each individual? In such a scenario, how to convince our brethren in the scientific community about the validity of the theories of spiritual science? Unless we satisfactorily answer these questions, there won't be any true understanding of the discoveries of spiritual science.
These are open ended questions about the validity of spiritual science and we should leave it that way, rather than impose some artificial solutions. At the same time, we should try to understand the underlying principle of various spiritual theories in as objective a manner as possible and also see their manifestations in the observable world. If the spiritual theories can not have any concrete observable material result then those theories remain unproven, though not rejected. They will then become 'theoretical spiritual science'.
The material science starts aligning itself with the spiritual doctrines in the realm of subatomic world, called quantum physics. When it comes to quantum physics, all the scientific notions about the accepted scientific investigation goes tipsy turvy. One of the most bizarre premises of quantum theory, which has long fascinated philosophers and physicists alike, states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality. As per the quantum mechanics, Quantum particles can behave like particles when they are located in a single place. However at the same time, they can also act like waves, distributed all over space or in several places at once. How they appear seems to depend on how we choose to measure them. Curiously, bef
ore we measure they seem to have no definite properties at all. This leads us to a fundamental conundrum about the nature of basic reality. This fuzziness leads to apparent paradoxes such as Schrödinger’s cat, in which thanks to an uncertain quantum process a cat can be dead and alive at the same time. Quantum particles also seem to be able to affect each other instantaneously even when they are far away from each other. This truly bamboozling phenomenon is known as entanglement, or, in a phrase coined by Einstein (a great critic of quantum theory), “spooky action at a distance”.
Spiritual Science is a further extension of quantum mechanics. If quantum mechanics deal with subatomic world, Spiritual Science deals with 1 x 10-15 m Hyper -Femto-atomic world. (Femto = 0.000,000,000,000,001 m) Hyper-Femto is the size of extreme level of minutest particles. Therefore the laws of spiritual science may seem bizarre to the material scientists just like the physics of subatomic particles appear to be bizarre to any layman.
It is only a question of time - and that time can be few decades from now - when the measuring instruments of the material science are so developed as to transcend the frontiers of material science and touch the realms of spirituality, though may not yet fathom it fully.
SAY firmly holds the belief that there is NO REAL DIFFERENCE between the material world and the spiritual world. It is only a question of degree of our observing faculty. In reality it is a continuum. A practitioner of SAY develops his observing faculty at a much higher level and is able to perceive the truths of spirituality.
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