​Why do scientists criticize spirituality and spiritualists criticize science?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So why can’t science and spirituality be integrated together Why is it that spiritual people are critical of science And why is it that scientific people Often ridicule spirituality Yeah Actually the conflict comes because We don’t recognize The scopes of science and spirituality So I’ll start from science perspective Then I’ll come to spiritual perspective Science has transformed the world around us In the last 500 years In the last 50 years there has been remarkable transformation And in that sense there is no denying The power of science In terms of Giving us a framework For dealing with matter At the same time Science does not give us Knowledge of reality It gives us models of reality There is a difference between reality And a model of reality To explain this This is a whole big subject But I have many seminars on science and spirituality But I’ll just keep it as simple as possible That If we study Presently there are two main branches of physics There is quantum physics And there is relativity Now According to relativity There are particles which exist According to quantum physics There are no particles There are only waves Now if we ask physicists What is the reality What is it actually Are there waves Or are there particles Actually These two theories Both of them work Quantum physics works in certain fields Relativity works in certain fields But in terms of their conceptual understanding Of what is the reality Both of them are contradictory Violently contradictory So What is the nature of reality Most physicists Today You see we don’t talk about the nature of reality There is a There are many books written on the history of science One well known book is It talks about the How science evolved in the 20th century By a science journalist David Peat The title of that book is From Certainty to Uncertainty So basically science Gives us very powerful models of reality Quantum physics works as one model of reality Relativity works as another model of reality But the two They don’t match And there is no one who knows how to match them And it’s not just It’s a deep subject But the point simply is that Science doesn’t give us reality It gives us models of reality And the models of reality are useful Very useful But they don’t describe reality totally Unfortunately There are atheists Who take science And there is a prestige associated with science And they misappropriate it For propagating atheism They start saying that If you are scientific How can you believe in this religious mythology How can you believe in soul How can you believe in God How can you believe in all this stuff Now actually speaking Science As I explained earlier It It observes material phenomena And gives material explanations for material phenomena Science does not talk anything about Non-material reality Whether it exists or not If it exists How it can be accessed Science doesn’t talk about that So there is So when atheists Use science To propagate atheism They are actually Extending science beyond its valid jurisdiction Science has its power In giving us knowledge of things as they exist But science doesn’t answer ultimate questions Albert Einstein said that We can talk about The Ethical foundations of science But we cannot turn around and talk about Sorry Yeah We can talk about ethical foundations of science But we cannot turn around and talk about Scientific foundation of ethics What is right and wrong How do I decide that Science can tell me That if I have a grandmother Who has given her inheritance to me That if I put arsenic in her breakfast I can get the inheritance tomorrow I am not saying scientists will do that Scientists will do that or scientific people will do that All that I am saying is Science can tell me that this is going to happen If arsenic goes into a person’s bloodstream They will die But whether that is right or wrong Science doesn’t tell us that Science by itself is not moral or immoral It is amoral Amoral means it does not deal with issues of morality So moral decisions What is right, what is wrong That we get to know from some other source Science doesn’t tell us that And it is not a deficiency of science to not be able to tell us that Because science is a particular way of acquiring knowledge So when scientists When rather more precisely When atheists in the garb of science Atheists using the prestige of science Ridicule spirituality Then they are actually Extending science beyond its valid jurisdiction So there can be scientists who can be atheists There can be scientists who can be theists There can be scientists who can be agnostics But this is coming from their own experience This is coming from their own intellectual analysis This is not a necessary conclusion of science So science is neutral with respect to God From scientific findings People who have faith in God They can see science as a way of increasing their faith in God There are atheists Who can think oh science answers all questions And they can use science to boost up their atheism Science is simply a tool for acquiring knowledge In a particular way of a particular aspect of reality But when it is misappropriated for promoting particular ideologies When say it is misappropriated for propagating atheism Then scientists ridicule spirituality That’s one aspect to it Now with respect to spiritualists When they criticize science Actually what Ashutosh Prabhupada was sometimes quite strong In his criticism of science But if you look at it carefully He was critical In this one morning conversation Ashutosh Prabhupada says That we are not against the knowing spirit of science When scientists want to know We are not against that We are against their atheism That means Ideally speaking The spiritualists They recognize that spirituality is a different body of knowledge And when science starts making statements about spirituality Then that When scientists start making It appear as if to be scientific you have to be atheistic When science starts propagating atheism Then spiritualists criticize that But the criticism is not of science It is actually of the invalid extrapolation of science Beyond its jurisdiction So the way I see the two coming together is Science can make things better Spirituality can make people better With science we can make many gadgets better We can have better communication technology We can have better transformation technology It can make things better But science itself does not provide a methodology By which you can make people better Science cannot If some people have Say Some people have greed Some people have excessive lust Some people have excessive anger When a person has too much anger There is no pill that science can give Take this pill and your anger will go away You can give pills by which you can put people to sleep But you cannot cure anger So there are undesirable Unhealthy forces within us Which make us act In ways that are destructive for others And damaging for ourselves also And those Those cannot be countered by science But spirituality offers us methods for doing that So when we practice yoga When we practice meditation Then we connect with our spiritual core We experience higher wisdom And higher satisfaction within ourselves And then that enables us to combat The lower forces that are there within us And this is something that millions of people All over the world For example, those who practice bhakti yoga Millions of people all over the world have experienced this They have had some unhealthy habits And they are struggling to give it up But once they start practicing bhakti yoga Those habits fall away Now it is not that This has happened for everyone Why it will not happen? Because some people may not actually be practicing bhakti As a serious spiritual discipline Let me just be doing it as a ritual Okay, my culture tells me to do it, so I will do it So it is possible That even among people who are religious People who claim to be spiritual There may be people who Sometimes behave badly Sometimes they also act immorally And they may do wrong things That happens because They are not practicing spirituality As a process for self transformation They are simply practicing spirituality As As a As a cultural practice Or as a socially respectable Facade If I am in a particular society where it looks nice If I go to church, if I go to mosque, if I go to temple That’s why I go there But then I stay materialistic and I just want to put on a facade So that can also happen So just like a person who goes to a hospital But doesn’t take the medicine They are going to stay sick If a person is sick And they go to a hospital not to take medicine But for some other purpose So like that some people may come to The process of spirituality also Come to spiritual places But they are not really interested in spiritual transformation So then they will not be transformed That’s why If we meet spiritualists Who are serious About growing spiritually Then they will Help us understand how science and spirituality Can be integrated together And when People come with ulterior agendas Then it is Atheists who come to science To misappropriate science, they will criticize spirituality And when spiritualists come for Some purpose other than spiritual growth Then they may also end up Criticizing science Because for them, they are not really interested in spiritual growth So That’s why if we meet people who are Serious practitioners Of spirituality, they can guide us about how the two Can be integrated Does that answer your question? Thank you very much Can we stop here? Thank you Do we have time?