IT is meaningless to hold that a scientist must necessarily be an atheist. There is no need to cite instances of the past. Leaving aside the examples of Newton, Kepler and Tycho Brahe, even in the world of to-day it is not rare to find more than one scientist who believes in God. In this respect Lodge, Eddington, Einstein and Planck are outstanding figures that require no introduction. It is generally said that a scientist may indeed be a God-believer, but not in the capacity of a scientist. The faculty by which he acquires religious certainty has no scientific bearing, it belongs to quite a different sphere of human life. The being of man comprises such a dual nature; on one side he may be a scientist and on the other he may remain a non-scientist.
The reasoning faculty, the intellectual power of the mental being is the instrument by which the scientist carries on his search after truth. If he wants to remain strictly faithful to reality as it appears, then he cannot exceed the realm of sense-perceptions. But without reason he will simply indulge in chimeras and build castles in the air which are but deformations of: sense-perceptions. Bergson the philosopher, however, opines that the intellect by itself cannot go beyond the domain of sense-knowledge, because it comes into being and exists in the field of the senses by way of a necessity and as a reaction of the senses to their objects. The intellectual faculty develops in man so that he may handle material things properly and effectively. The so-called universal truths or laws of Nature that the scientist discovers by virtue
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of his keen intellect have their chief advantage in enabling one to deal with the external world with considerable ease. That is why the scientist is blind to any other mystery than that of Matter. This is a defect pertaining to and inherent in his nature. Be that as it may, we have still to say that the intellect has attained its acme in the scientist. The speciality of the intellect has found its best manifestation in him. On the basis of the wealth of sense-perceptions and by their analysis and synthesis and by observation and experimentation, to arrive at a universal law as wide as possible marks the special genius of the scientist.
The mysteries of Nature that have been discovered by scientific methods are not the last word or the whole of her truth. However, it may be said: “There is no other means of arriving at the realistic truth. By treading any other path we can get into the worlds of imagination, poetry, illusion and delusion, surely not into the world of realities.” We shall have occasion to say something about the possibility of other ways of knowledge and enquiry into the truth. For the present, we shall try to investigate whether the scientific method can lead us any further. And the scientists who have made such an advancement in knowledge – where have they arrived and what is the value of their work?
We have already mentioned that sense-perception is the basis of scientific research. The whole gamut of scientific knowledge is founded on it. And the scientist cannot violate or overpass the canons of science. Still there is one thing more and here we deal with the limits and limitations of human knowledge. But how can science or the scientific methodology assert that it has alone found the clue to the essence and nature of knowledge and truth? The question can be asked whether the theism of Einstein or Planck is the ultimate consequence of their scientific intellect or a reflection of some other non-scientific faculty. A class of continental scientists says that the religious sentiment and the puritanism of the scientists of the British Isles are so strong
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that they will not feel happy unless they can introduce a few Biblical expressions even into the table of logarithms.
However that may be, it must be admitted that the theism of the scientist may also be the natural and spontaneous out come of his scientific intellect. It is not necessary that it should originate from some primitive faculty apart from reason. The purely scientific intellect and the theistic spirit may belong to the same mode of human consciousness. The sense of infinity, the sense of magic and wonder are common to both; thus the two may be congruous and commensurate, although the purely religious spirit, the soul's seeking for the Divine and the type of theism proper to the scientific mind are different in nature and orientation and are independent of each other.
From the standpoint of norms and. ultimate values that science brings forward, reasoning does not occupy the most important place. Science presumes to arrive at a logical conclusion from observation of facts of Nature. The advantages and benefits that we get from science are its material side. But there is another aspect of the scientific intellect which is incorporated into it as its fragrance and beauty, like that of a fruit or flower. What is that thing? Different scientists have expressed it in different ways. But all expressions centre round the same truth. Science avowedly seeks to arrive at the truth within the framework of reasoning by weighing and measuring the material limbs of Nature, confining itself strictly within the four corners of material Nature. But the one thing which, if not manifest even at the outset, has gradually blossomed and taken hold of the scientist, that has from the beginning existed as a hidden inspiration behind the veil, is the sense of a profound mystery, the touch of an infinite eternity, something inexpressible, something to be wondered at, an unmanifest that cannot be defined yet can be felt, a glimpse of a conscious existence: that has been called the supreme unity by some; others have called it the Pure Reason, yet others have
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called it the highest law or dispensation while there are people who prefer to call it consciousness or awareness. Such a sense and perception and. experience does not fall under the strict field of scientific research, but the scientist is surrounded, as it were, by a subtle atmosphere, a halo wherefrom proceeds his inspiration for research, for clues, for the vision of truth. Do we not see that all great scientists possess this turn of temperament, an opening, as it were, into other subtle realms? Perhaps many are merely compilers, cataloguers, but those who have discovered something genuine and have been able to unveil some secrets of Nature emanate the fragrance and radiance I speak of, beyond the reasoning faculty. When Kepler looked at the sky through his telescope to observe the course of the stars and the planets, he was deeply absorbed in the experience of something vast, infinite, strange and mysterious. Was it not then at this golden moment that it flashed like lightning through his mind that the orbits of the planets were elliptical and the Sun is at one focus of these apparent ellipses? Is not this incident as strikingly wonderful as the discovery of the law of gravitation made by Newton when he noticed an apple fall to the ground?
In fact, it is merely a notion or a mental complex that the scientific knowledge is solely or chiefly the outcome of the reasoning process. Many of the scientists are perhaps of the opinion that it must be so, but the fact is otherwise. Discovery means the removal of a veil and that too all on a sudden. Reasoning steps in later to establish the discovery on a firm footing, at the most it makes slight alterations here and there, adds or subtracts a few necessaries, clarifies the discovery and gives precision to it. In the matter of all true knowledge and ultimate certitude the inner perception and intuition come first and what provides the major premiss to the logical syllogism is beyond reasoning.
Nevertheless it must be admitted that however subtle and high or even theistic and religious may be this scientific
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faculty it has not come up to the level of genuine integral spirituality. Many philosophers must have had easily and naturally some realisation of this kind. The intuition of infinity in. the philosopher Spinoza and in the scientist Einstein is of the same quality and status – impersonal, abstract, a mathematical infinitude, an x as it were. The scientist has reached the acme of his specific faculty as a result of the sublimation of his sense-perception, the philosopher by the sublimation of his conceptual ideation. But both are unable to surpass the boundary of the brain and the intellect. The true spirituality lies in exceeding this limit – in piercing through the six centres, as the Tantras would say. The amor intellectualis Dei of Spinoza may signify the theism of the scientist, but it has not reached the status of spirituality.
We do not know how many have given due regard to this remarkable fact that the rational mind of modern times, inspired by the spirit of science which has turned towards spirituality for whatever reason, is often attracted to the pure Vedanta or the Buddhistic philosophy of India. The chief reason for this appears to me to be this that the truth and the essence of religion are looked upon as anthropomorphic by the scientist. The scientist can hardly accept this position. For, the very speciality of the scientific procedure is to keep aside the human factor from human knowledge. A particular knowledge bears the stamp of the knower, but science aims at knowledge independent of its knower. Now the scientific attitude from its summit declares, “I do not know the unknown and the unknowable that is beyond.” This learned ignorance which is called agnosticism, and is, in a little altered form, known as scepticism – that is the legitimate consummation of scientific rationalism. But when one looks upon this unknown and unknowable with religious reverence, one says, "Therefrom speech returns baffled along with the mind." This is verily the Brahman, beyond speech and mind; and its other name
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is then Nihil.. Mind can understand mind or its absence or disintegration. It is extremely difficult for it to comprehend anything that is apart from these two extreme terms. It is not so difficult for the rational mind to accept the spiritual doctrine of 'not this, not this'; but the other aspects of spirituality – the truth about divine Forms and Incarnations, about Purushottama, the supreme Being, even the transmigration of the soul, – all these are senseless enigmas to reason-bound mind. The triune principle of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss of the Vedanta is such a general, neutral and indefinite principle that it seems to be intuited and felt by the pure intellect when it climbs up to its acme. In other words, at the highest level of the brain, as it were, there takes place the first revelation of spirituality, a glow and reflection amounting to the perception of a formless infinite, whose true nature is separately or simultaneously an existence, consciousness and bliss or a non-Being pregnant with all the essence of Being.
The scientific intellect has thus reached a certain theism and the poet and the artist also have reached similar levels through different ways of approach. The aesthetic taste of the artist, the sense of intense delight in the beauty of the cosmic creation is not born of the intellect but is allied to it, and falls within the category of the mind – it is a thing that belongs to this side of the boundary of consciousness, which we have to cross to attain to the true spiritual world. The twilight consciousness is, as it were, on the border-line; it belongs in its rhythm, gesture, gait and expression still to this shore-land rather than the other, howsoever may the artist aspire for the shore beyond. No doubt, I speak of the creations of artists in general. There are rare artists whose creation embodies genuine spiritual experience and realisation. But that is a different matter – it concerns the purely spiritual art. Ordinary works of art do not belong to that category and derive their inspiration from a different source. With regard to philosophy something similar
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might be said. Most of the Indian philosophies, such as the philosophies of Shankara, Ramanuja, the sage Kapila and Patanjali are but intellectual expressions of different spiritual visions and realisations. If it be so, then is it not possible for science also to become a vehicle or expression of spiritual realisations? This may not have materialised up till now; generally or to a large degree perhaps an attempt of the kind was made in the line that is known as occultism, and which was called alchemy by the ancients, but the effort ended in a spurious system of rites and ceremonies. No doubt this knowledge, even at its best, falls short of the Higher Knowledge, Para Vidya; still there was a time when the Inferior Knowledge, Apara Vidya, was accepted as a stepping-stone to the Higher. "Exceeding death by Avidya (Ignorance) one has to enjoy immortality through Vidya (Knowledge)" – "Avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyaya amrtam asnute."
But whatever may have been the past, is there any possibility for the most materialistic science of to-day – the ultramundane knowledge – to become directly and integrally united with the supreme spiritual Knowledge? If there is any possibility, then wherein does it lie? We have elsewhere said that it will be possible only when we shall learn to collect data for scientific discoveries and to search after truth not only with our physical senses but also with subtler and inner senses, and those subtler and inner senses will wake up and become a part and parcel of our nature only when the outlook of the scientist will get liberated from its materialistic bias and allow itself to be widened, deepened and heightened and transformed on the way to its being finally established in the pure consciousness of the Soul and the Self.
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