Is there anything scientific about spirituality?

Science and spirituality have been two pillars of the human race right from the very beginning. The man who invented agriculture and fire was no less a scientist than the Nobel laureates of modern times. And the joy of being able to feed the whole tribe through agriculture must have been no less spiritual an experience. Science and spirituality have a lot in common, but it is also important to respect their differences since both have their own unique features. Science and spirituality are like two sisters who may have very similar genes but have very different personalities. Science may have largely captured the human imagination over the last few decades, but there are aspects of the human condition outside of the purview of science and these aspects are no less important than science itself. Spirituality is one such aspect. Let us try to understand the similarities and differences between science and spirituality.

Science is about the world around us whereas spirituality is a study of the world within. Science is about the outside and spirituality is about the inside. But then, what is the boundary separating the two. Outside and inside of what? The boundary, my friends, is our ego, the big I. When we look at things in the world that don’t belong to our ego, we develop science. And spirituality begins when we analyze things that we feel are part of our ego. Science is about attaching to things that we are detached from. And spirituality is about detaching from things we are attached to! This process of attachment and detachment is the basic building block of all interactions in this world. The most difficult but most important thing in life is to decide what we should be attached to and what we should be detached from. If we can master this art of attachment-detachment, we have pretty much solved the biggest challenge of life!

Usually, it is believed that spirituality is about God or Brahman and hence it is about the absolute. And science is believed to be about the world of Maya that is ever changing and hence it is about the relative. But that’s true only from the theoretical point of view. From the practical point of view, the opposite is actually true. Science is about the absolute since scientists are trying to find objective laws that describe physical phenomenon irrespective of time and place. The law of gravity is the same whether we are in New York or New Delhi. The value of the gravitational constant may change but the law remains the same. But spirituality is about our personal relation with our inner Self, with God and with people around us. Spirituality is about our subjective truth. A mathematical equation that gives the correct result for me will definitely give the correct result for you. But the process of meditation that works for me need not work for you. In order to make spiritual progress, it is actually not even necessary to do meditation if we can serve others without any selfish motive. Vivekananda himself has said that Karma Yoga alone can lead to liberation.

When we think of science and scientists, a homogeneous picture usually comes to mind. But the way a mathematician thinks is actually very different from the way a physicist thinks which is yet very different from the way an engineer thinks. Also, the way a theoretician thinks is very different from the way an experimentalist thinks. The closest connection that spirituality has with science is with its experimental side. Peter Higgs may have theoretically predicted the existence of the Higgs Boson in 1960s but what finally matters is whether we can actually see it in experiments. Peter won the Nobel Prize only after the Large Hadron Collider was able to detect this elusive particle recently. Similarly, spirituality is not about some abstract theories of Atman and Brahman. Spirituality is about being and becoming. In spirituality, the experimental equipment is our own body and mind. Just reading the Gita and Upanishads does not make us spiritual. What makes us spiritual is a practice of these ideas in our day-to-day lives and demonstrating their efficacy.

But here also, there is a very significant difference between science and spirituality. Science is about things which can be measured. Spirituality is about immeasurable things. Science is about quantity whereas spirituality is about quality. Science can give us a house but it is spirituality which makes it a home. But this does not mean that spirituality is more important than science. There can’t be a home without a house. Both are equally important pillars of the human race, and man will only be a lame creature without one of them. What matters is to respect each of them in their own place. Neither science nor spirituality can have a monopoly over the human imagination. Science gives us utility but its spirituality which gives us value. Most problems of modern society are due to the simple fact that we pay too much attention to utility and too little to value. This balance needs to be restored. 

The most crucial thing in science is that it progresses through a state of eternal doubt. Even if a scientific theory has been established for centuries, there will always be a room for change. In fact, scientists are all the time looking for flaws in existing theories. Scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN were in fact quite disappointed when they could not find anything that challenged the current Standard Model of Particle Physics. This element of doubt is also very healthy in spirituality in the initial stages but in order to make progress after a certain point, one needs to develop unwavering faith. A purely logical approach to spirituality seldom bears fruit. The path of knowledge has to be merged with the path of devotion. As Richard Feynmann once said, “Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.” Even an intellectual giant like Sankaracharya ended up composing a beautiful devotional song titled Bhaja Govindam. But it is very important to not confuse devotion with blind faith. The most important difference is perhaps that a person with true devotion will never make self-contradictory and false statements in order to prove the value of devotion. And this is what makes true devotion very scientific in nature and very different from blind faith. As Thomas Merton once said, “We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.”

So, is there anything scientific about spirituality? The fact that we are asking this question itself shows the extent to which science has captured our imagination. In today’s world, things are usually considered credible only if terms like ‘scientific’ and ‘logical’ are associated with them. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There is absolutely no value in being unscientific and illogical. But it is also important to understand that both science and logic come in many varieties. The science of physics is very different from the science of chemistry, which is again very different from the science of biology. Similarly, the process of spirituality is very different from all these other sciences. We should not try to measure the weight of a substance using a clock. Similarly, we should not try to measure the efficacy of spiritual truths using the parameters of physics or mathematics. Each is great in its own place. As Carl Sagan once said, “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

YouTube Link (slides+audio):
https://youtu.be/MMOR9s-tx0o

This was delivered as a webinar organised by the FOWAI FORUM:

http://www.fowai.org