Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Fri 22 Jul 2005 11:41 PM PDT
079.ap.Rightly put Ron. I researched scientists pro/con Cs. being primary (in mid-90s).
From: alok pandey (taijasalok@yahoo.co.in )
Date: July 22, 2005 11:40:30 PM PDT
To: rjon@vzavenue.net
Subject: Re: CMVEV - Response to Alok's concerns
Yes, thats rightly put, Ron, I too feel that Science is taking /
bound to take its inquiry into the field where there is the fundamental
Reality of Consciousness. In fact I am aware of the well-intentioned
authors you mention and had an occasion to make a huge compilation of
several scientists arguing for and against the issue, the opinion then,
(mid-nineties) was divided equally.
Now how are we resolve this issue definitively? For, intellectually
one can argue either ways depending upon the locus standii, the initial
premises, the viewing window and so on. I suppose it is nearly
impossible to solve or resolve the issue definitively at the purely
mental level, at least where we as a race stand today. It is here that
yoga steps in and with a difference. While Science tries to get at That
by multiplying instruments and straining the intellectual mind to its
utmost, Yoga tries to awaken the inner faculties, refine the existing
ones and expand the mentla consciousness till it passes into the more
than mind experience. That is pragmatism, to know it by seeing it or
even better by becoming it.
The deductions and conceptions, however accurate will stil leave
always something unknown, that something which is probably a most
crucial Thing. The scientist has to sooner or later pass off into the
yogi or else move in a circle, if he is sincere (which we all believe
they are and one canot doubt that). In other words there is a way of
knowing and experienceing truths even truths of the physical world
other than the indirect methods of Science.
That I suppose is self-evident when we wonder how Sri Aurobindo and
some of these ancient seers knew even about the material world,
apparently without the methods used today. One wonders for example the
whole pharmacopea of Ayurveda stil relevant in spite of the rise and
decline of modern scientific medicine. There is no mention of
statistical proofs, double blind trials, empirical evidence and yet and
yet there is the efficacy whose outer reason we discover sometimes now,
in our age after much labour, error and expense, which is indeed the
ordinary way of movement of Nature that Science represents.
Can this way be expediated as Yoga claims and if so is it not
better that the scientist fulfills himself by taking to conscious Yoga
rather than follow the methods it is so far accustomed to. Of course
each to his own and in the last analysis, one can say that there is
indeed a vast yoga going on even in the hard core materialist that
often serves greater purpose in God's mighty plan. But that’s a wider
issue and we may loose focus there. For us, the practical issue is
whether to wait and follow the way and methods of Science and their
discoveries or to move on the straight but narrow and may be more
difficult road to Yoga.
As to atheism and theism it is a different matter and perhaps both are as wrong or right.
alok
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