Most people including many scientists think science and spirituality are just too different to be mixed. This apparent perception of conflict is perhaps not without some justification. Those who followed spirituality down the ages did so with blind faith. Why? Because their experience showed that spirituality enriched their lives otherwise. But blind faith invariably gets mixed up with some false and undesirable beliefs such as superstitions and dogmas that can lead people down a thorny path. Many scientists are turned off by such misleading beliefs and that is the understanding. But they also tend to throw the baby out with the bath water. They dismiss true spirituality along with superstition.
A renowned physicist writes that he is rather elated about the latest advances in modern cosmology and quantum physics. Not long ago, it would have been considered extremely arrogant to think that we could figure out how this vast and busy universe developed and that we could trace our ultimate origin back to 13.7 billion years ago to a tiny nugget of space containing the blueprint of the universe, which sequentially unfolded to create everything.
The evidences are so convincing that Nobel prizes are being awarded for advances towards the “theory of everything” which has the remarkable goal to show that at least everything physical in this universe comes from a single source. As exciting as these advances are, there still seems to be a significant gap in our scientific world view. Because we have no consensus about the origin and the nature of existence our consciousness, the very window that allows us to perceive all the amazing insights.
A particular aspect of the enigma of consciousness has been very puzzling to quite a few great thinkers of our time. Einstein put it eloquently by proclaiming “the most incomprehensible fact about nature is that it is comprehensible”. Others such as Nobel physicist Eugene Wigner have referred to this as a miracle. Mathematician Roger Penrose is baffled by the fact that the universe has developed in obedience of the laws that our consciousness seems designed to grasp. Could it be that our consciousness is a fundamental reality which is intertwined with the universe itself? Is physicist Freeman Dyson right when he says: “The universe in some sense must have known that we were coming?”
Quantum physics and modern cosmology support the oneness of all spiritual traditions, popularly known as God. However, the God that science supports is an abstract entity akin to Brahmn, which manifests itself through us. When we realise our oneness with God, our mind may acquire a laser-like focus and we instinctively know the purpose of life. We may continue to try in this direction assuming that our forefathers might have searched out a relationship between science and spiritual beliefs.
Be Happy – Science Could Support Spiritual Beliefs.