The Right Answers And Wrong Questions

I started delving with the ideas of atheism and spiritualism lately. It all started with a comment that religious faith is blind with ignorance towards scientific methodology of evidence or mathematical proof. You can read more about the post here. Which lead to further contemplation on the topic, which seemed to have permanently ingrained itself in my mind. However I realized there was a fundamental difference between Western atheism, Abrahamic religions and Vedic spiritualism. I'll only go into atheism and my spiritualism.

Western atheism arises from the debate between creation versus evolution. Modern scientists refuted the claims such as Earth was at the center of the universe or the universe is a few thousand years old. Over the course of Western history it was proven the infinite magnitude of universe (even multiverse). Thus evolved the modern science, which included stalwarts like Sir Issac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus and other open minds in the Western world.

After that came Charles Darwin whose revelations based on the observation of various species on the Galápagos Islands opened new possibilities of evolution of mankind from a primordial soup of single-cellular organism that evolved to multi-cellular species like fishes and these jumped to land to turn to apes, monkeys and finally us. The theory managed to explain the interrelation between various species and modern scientists have explained the "odds" in mathematical formulations in terms of mutation. You can read more here.

In later years scientists like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking have written books that deal with the refutation of existence or redundancy of the need to have a God. The objective is to "remove" the mystery from the equation that will mathematically explain the big bang or the primordial soup. These theories whittle down the universe (including us) into strings and genes that are governed by certain laws which are work in progress. And the argument seem to concentrate on refuting religion rather than independent hypothesis.

Their arguments seem sound however some of these try to poke at the apparent "funniness and ridiculousness" of a blind belief in a supernatural being that is watching and controlling our actions like a big brother (or even like a big government). For the masses it leads to hypochondriac belief that the free will is at risk. I am saddened by their lack of will, perhaps unintentional, to understand the mind and soul as explained in Vedic religion.

In a way it's very easy to be atheistic if you believe you are a person of science not faith - a statement that is used quite often to explain the reason for one's atheism or agnosticism. Is that where the problem lies that refuting a particular scripture was the start to refuting God? And the next is acceptance of a set of inviolable scientific laws and theories, most of which I frankly don't understand, so is this the basis of my refusal to spiritualism?

To make my thoughts slightly clearer, I tried to work through an analogy. We all know about quantum mechanics that have been able to explain the world at atomic or even sub-atomic level. Thus providing the necessary mathematical support to the primordial universe that leads to heavens, earth and us. A few mathematical theories are in progress; in particular String Theory and set of theories in M-Theory are primary contenders that will unite the "forces" literally. 

So the development of higher school of mathematics and physics is in progress that will explain the process that began the creation of universe. I'm at loss when Stephen Hawking explains model-independent test of reality or John Conway's Game of Life. I tried my hands at a course on exploring quantum physics but was overawed by the mathematics. On a side note, I'll try my hands sometime later on this mathematics for now I'll have to accept it exists.

Continuing to belabour my analogy; Science has explained the nature of universe (I've my qualms with the theory of evolution though). However science seems to be at loss when questioned on morality, ethics, humility, karma yog and most importantly the fickle nature of materialistic happiness and our perpetual desire to strive for happiness despite philosophers calling it a state of mind. This state of mind is rather elusive and volatile. On death the atheists quote Bertrand Russell's thoughts on falsity of claims of our survival beyond death; the question I seem to ignore is who is "us"?  

The answers to questions on self-realization need a different set of concepts. It is not right to explain these concepts using the mathematics which is "evolving" as humans progress. So we cannot explain our belief in spiritualism? No, there exists a set of higher "mathematics" that is willing to explain the nature of mind, soul and senses. I'm using the word mathematics rather loosely to compare it with a theory of Vedic spiritualism that includes the concepts of birth-rebirth, ego, attraction, soul, God et al that seemed to bother us all at some point of time in our lives. 

I'm not sure if that's what the saints refer to as Tatva Gyaan. It is the knowledge one has to study and understand to reach a state of self-realization which is beyond the state of realization of mathematics of universe or human genomes or any other knowledge that explains a phenomenon. Unless I don't understand the inner workings of my mind and intellect not in the substantial form but in the fundamentally conceptual and behavioral form I cannot call myself an educated man. At the end of the day with all the knowledge of basic-level science I possess I am still a man suffering from mental ailments of anger, greed, lack of peace of mind etc. I cannot find those answers in science or mathematics and it would be naivety to the point of stupidity to ask for those answers from these sciences.

Inspirations

This is a post dedicated to Bhagvad Gita - The Song of God by Swami Mukandananda which has managed to arouse certain spots in my brain that seemed to have been lying dormant due to lack of stimulation and mental lethargy. I attribute the inspirations as well as the words of this post to his book. 

In the end I would quote what my father sent to me in an email "O! Men of Thoughts! You are my creed! Don't shut your brains because of scriptures, don't just confine to THE LAWS!! Let’s proceed to the path of discovery. Discover the Law-Maker and write your scriptures about genesis, evolution and destruction of Universe. Pray! Don't just be obsessed with refuting scriptural observation. Move ahead, make your mind independent, bring forth your discovery treatise without reference to scriptures, remove all shackles and unite with the Law-Maker Supreme."

--The End--