Science and Religion

Science and religion need not be at odds with each other. Science is the pursuit of truth in the external, objective world and religion or spirituality is the pursuit of truth in the internal, subjective world. Just as the mind and body need to harmonize to have healthy life in man, so do these two important aspects of humanity. The strength of science lies in it's ability to look at reality with an open objective framework. When new and better understandings of existence and nature are discovered, the old views simply give way to the more advanced and better viewpoint. With religion and spirituality, it is a little more tricky. This realm of human inquiry attempts to find and explain the internal, subjective world of the mind , heart and soul. This territory is a much greater challenge for obvious reasons. Much advancement has been made also in this regard in recent times. Not only are new and more advanced understandings emerging today from many sources, a global shift of consciousness is happening on a scale that is unprecedented in human history. This shift has allowed for a better understanding of the ancient spiritual wisdom of most traditions and is providing a framework for integration as such. The Eternal Truth is One. It contains all aspects of reality including both subjective and objective aspects. All religions need to adopt the open minded and objective posture of the scientist when searching for internal truth. If advanced understanding emerges, the dogmas and less advanced concepts need to give way to the deeper realizations. This is very difficult for most traditional highly organized religions because their structure and very existence is highly dependent on the old concepts and precepts. At this point in mans evolution however, if they can't transcend their attachment to their limited grasp of reality, they will eventually be left on the garbage pile of history. Ultimate reality is non-conceptual and best experinced directly. It transcends all dogmas and belief systems. It is what Lao Tsu called the first principle. If you can speak about it, that's not it. Scriptures , sutras, words about ultimate reality are the second principle. In other words they are indirect and as such open to great potential for debate and misunderstanding . Even the words on this page are at best pointers to the truth!
Science on the other hand will never find ultimate reality if it continues to believe it is the whole enchilada. The failure to recognize the transcendent spiritual dimension has brought it to a dead end as such. I believe we are stuck at string theory! Even the great Albert Einstein was religious and knew the limits of physical science! What is needed is a scientific religiosity . In other words , both the theists and atheists need to adopt the beginners mind of Zen and take a fresh and open look in an integrated way. In other words, the human being is not simply the physical body including the intellectual mind, it is also not just the dimension of spirit , heart and soul. It is an integration of both. This is so obvious I wonder what all the fuss has been in the past!It must be the ego staking out its territory for survival. Let's drop that narrow view of life! Life is one integrated whole with the primordial energy and intelligence as subject and the manifested cosmos as object. They are totally interdependent and cannot exist without each other . As such there is divinity in all aspects of life! If we can all see through the veil of conceptual obscuration , we may experience life directly as it is. It would be better if we would all take an agnostic approach. Let life in the present moment reveal itself in all it's glory without the mental barriers of the highly conceptualized conditioned mind. We are all much more than that!!!