10 Sep 2024
I urge the community of spiritual and religious leaders to introspect and identify what has gone wrong historically in view of the development of science and identify a solid way forward. An honest reply to the following questions will be a great help from His Holiness. – Maganpal Singh
[The roles of science and spirituality are different in societal uplifting. Science evolved over merely few hundred years, soul is eternal as per sacred scriptures and so is the human existence. The social degeneration started well beyond origin of science. Then how can science to be only responsible for the social and personal unrest today?
Before scientific inventions, the society was largely directed and controlled by spiritual leaders (be it religious gurus or kings who were also devoted to some or other religion). The religion used to be most important factor of social foundation before science. Do we ever think why religious people started courting with science as it evolved?
A person would try to cross boundary of religion if he no more finds system conducive. Why did scientists start opposing religion and spirituality? It is understandable that they were of inventive and investigative nature also and that prompted them to do something new but they could have very well remained part of religious system along with their inventions. Why did they part their ways with religion, being religious themselves? Is it because religions themselves continuously degenerated and well before the start of science and reached a point, where all the followers were not at ease?
Why is that scientists were easily able to convince the people of their ideology but saints could not retain the religious people on the platform and allowed them to get lost in the lures of science? Why is that scientist could perform their duties exceptionally well while well placed saints lost the ground to them? The reason could be that saints themselves might have got influenced with the so-called inventions of science and got involved in them.
Well before then scientific inventions, social and individual level fights have erupted in the world for land, material and sex, have the land or original materials and sexual desires been developed by science?
Spirituality says, the mother of all the grief in human life are the vices like lust, anger, greed and attachment. Have they been invented by science? It is understandable that false glory of science has certainly aggravated the intensity of these but the origin lies somewhere else.]
Reply of Swamiji: Science and Religion (can be taken as spiritual knowledge while standing by the side of science) are always inter linked from the time of the creation till today like the two eyes or two hands or two legs of a human being. Science is now used even in the case of certain subjects of arts, which are called as social sciences. In such case, you cannot confine the word Science to Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, Engineering and Medicine only. If you take the meaning of science as a systematic study based on sharp analysis, even the religion and spiritual knowledge come under the word science only. The spiritual knowledge is always based on the logical analysis and even the customs of religion are valued more if their systematic analysis is given. Hence, it becomes very difficult to draw the boundaries of these words in the infinite ocean of knowledge. Generally, the word science is used in the sense of the subject that deals with the analysis of all the items of the creation and based on such studies the ultimate goal of Science is to bring more and more happiness to the human being. Religion or spiritual knowledge is generally taken as a subject that deals with the Creator and goal of which is to please the Creator and get His grace. All your questions mentioned above should be split and allotted to these subjects in view of the above general sense. If such split is not done, both the subjects are getting mixed not only in one sentence but also in one word also existing in that sentence. Such a state will lead to confusion especially in the case of an ordinary human being, who cannot jump so fast from one side to the other.
Now to bring out the merits and defects of both these subjects, a third subject called logic should be introduced, which can be applied to both. Of course, the logic should be ending in the experience, without which it becomes infinite theoretical circus. In the ancient days also, the science existed very much, which is the way of technology that helps the human being to earn the requirements of life and be happy. In those days, the word happiness was bolted at a level beyond which it was found that endless journey for more and more happiness results in misery. Today also, you are finding the same as you can see the upset of the ecological balance by the development of science and technology in quest of more and more happiness. The environmental sciences make this point very clear. In the olden days, the subject regarding Creator was very much developed. But, the final essence of all the developments of spiritual knowledge is only that God exists to punish you for your sin even if you escape the police and courts. The deep theoretical discussions on the spiritual side were only based on one aspect, which is to answer the atheists at any level of their intelligence. This was essential because any deficiency in the answer will crack the foundation leading to growth of sin embedded with the talent of escaping the police and courts. If the fundamental existence of God is doubted, even the police and courts become corrupt and sinful. Today, this situation exists clearly because we neglected the depths of spiritual knowledge as dry metaphysics not useful to earn more happiness. Of course, the Science and technology are tremendously developed and such development would have been impossible without the assistance of sharp analytical logic. The fruits of such Science have resulted in the environmental disturbances, which resulted from the developed degree of happiness of the human being. This situation is facing simultaneously an undeveloped situation of spiritual knowledge due to discouraged association of logic resulting in sin.
The above concept can be enlightened through an example. Logic is good like exercise. If the exercise is applied to your body to a greater extent, it will be good for the body resulting in good health and resistance of diseases like sugar, etc. You are also doing exercise in blowing the fire with a fan to cook the food. If the exercise is more here, the huge fire developed makes the food charred and uneatable. Further growth of the fire may even burn your house to reduce it to ash. Therefore, limited exercise should be applied in the action of blowing the fire. The fire is the science and blowing is the association of tremendous logic with it. The body is like the spiritual knowledge and intensive exercise is like the grown up logic. You may add logic to any extent in the case of spiritual knowledge. The result is only that even very high intelligent person is convinced regarding the existence of God. On seeing the highly intelligent person getting convinced with the existence of God, even ordinary people get convinced with the existence of God and in such case, sharp analysis is not necessary for an ordinary person. This is the difference between the ancient and modern times. In the ancient time, deep logic was not encouraged in the growth of science and technology. As a result, the growth of science was moderate and the happiness was received by all. Uncontrolled growth of science for the over happiness was absent and hence, the misery in the name of over happiness never appeared to destroy the environment giving the fear of even the untimely destruction of the world. The spiritual knowledge was associated with the climax of logic and there was no danger of negative fruits in such case. Any extent of the strengthening of spiritual knowledge results only in the strengthening of the existence of Creator only, which means control of sin becoming more and more. The routine path of the universe is in cyclic motion and the re-appearance of the situation of ancient times is inevitable in the entire world. After all, the truth is experienced by everybody everywhere and the solution strikes the intelligence of everybody in course of time.