MEDITATIVENESS AND SCIENCE ARE DIFFICULT TO RECONCILE ?
THE VERY EFFORT TO RECONCILE THE POLAR opposites is wrong -- you will
never succeed in it. It is like trying to reconcile day and night, it is like trying to reconcile
life and death. You need not reconcile them, you have only to see that they ARE
reconciled. Day and night are moving perfectly in rhythm; life and death are like two
wings of existence.
Once you see that the polar opposites can't exist separately, once you have seen that
reconciliation is not needed at all, that they are already reconciled, that awareness will
help you to move from one pole to another without any problem. They are totally
different phenomena -- polar opposites, but all polar opposites are also complementaries.
Science is concentration: it is mind, it is effort.
Meditation or religion is a totally different world: it is relaxation, it is let-go -- it is not
concentration at all. It is not one-pointedness, it is no-pointedness. So how can you
reconcile them? How do you reconcile work and rest? But you work hard in the day, and
at night the rest comes of its own accord. You have earned it; your hard work brings rest.
Philosophically reconciliation is not possible: work cannot be rest, rest cannot be work. If
you try to create a synthesis you will destroy both, the beauty of both. Work is work, rest
is rest. But work done well brings rest, and if you have rested well in the night; in the
morning you will feel so vital, so alive, so full of energy, that work is needed. Rest brings
work, work brings rest -- it is a circle. Reconciliation is already there: day brings night,
night brings day; life brings death, death brings life. They are half-circles; with both
together the circle is perfect and complete. But please don't try to reconcile them in
theory, in philosophy.
In existence watch, and see how polar opposites are functioning together, hand in hand,
as complementaries. That has not been done yet; in fact, humanity was not mature
enough to do it up to now. Everything needs a particular time, a particular maturity, in
which to be done.
The East has lived religiously -- that is one pole -- and because IT has lived religiously it
has not been able to produce science. The West has lived scientifically, and because of its
science it has lost track of religion. Now for the first time, the East is no more East and
the West is no more West. The earth is becoming one: the earth is becoming one. global
village. This is the time when the reconciliation can be seen, can be understood.
Man is entering into a new phase; a new consciousness is to dawn. For at least ten
thousand years, as far as consciousness is concerned, nothing new has happened. There
have been Buddhas and there have been Albert Einsteins, but we are still waiting for a
Buddha who is also an Albert Einstein or an Albert Einstein who is also a Buddha. The
day is coming closer and closer. Albert Einstein in his last days was very much interested
in meditation, in religion. His last days were full of wonder. He said in his old age, "I
used to think when I was young that sooner or later all the mysteries of existence would
be solved, and I worked hard. But now I can say that the more we know, the more
existence turns out to be mysterious. The more we know, the less we know and the more
we become aware of the vastness...."
Science has not been able to demystify existence. Now this is recognized not by ordinary
technicians but by geniuses, because they are the pioneers; they can see the dawn very
close by, they are the prophets. Albert Einstein says that science has failed in
demystifying existence, that on the contrary it has mystified things even more.
For example, it was so easy in the old days, just a hundred years ago, for the scientist to
say that all is matter. Now matter has disappeared; in neo-physics there is no entity called
matter. The deeper the physicist went into the world of matter, the more matter was not to
be found at all: it is pure energy. How to define energy now? Is it material? Energy
cannot be material; energy is something totally different from matter. Matter is static,
energy is dynamic; matter is a noun, energy is a verb. Matter is measurable. That is
exactly the meaning of the word 'matter': it comes from 'measure', the root means
'measurable'. Matter can be measured, that's why it is called matter. Energy is
immeasurable, it cannot be called matter. And as the physicist has entered into the world
of energy, he has become more and more puzzled; never before has he been so puzzled.
Mystics have always been in awe before existence. The physicist is for the first time in
awe, because he has for the first time touched something very vital otherwise he was just
looking from the outside. A stone is just a stone from the outside. The physicist now
knows that the stone is not just a stone: it contains universes. A single small pebble that
you can hold in your hand contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can
grow out of it, contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can be destroyed
by it. It is not just a pebble any more and it is not solid any more. You are holding it in
your hand and you know it is solid, but your knowing is no longer scientific. It only
appears solid; it is liquid. And it looks so available, manipulatable; you can do things
with it. But you don't know its mysteries which are not manipulatable, and the mysteries
are really immense -- almost as immense as the mystery of God itself.
The modern physicist is using the language of the mystics for the first time. Eddington
said, "The universe no longer looks like a thing but like a thought." This, from the mouth
of a scientist, a Nobel prize-winner -- the universe looks like a thought and not like a
thing? That means the universe is more consciousness than matter. And matter has been
analyzed, our penetration has become deeper; we have come across atoms, electrons,
neutrons -- and we are utterly mystified, at a loss even to express what we have come
across. We don't have the language, the right language for it, because we have never
known it.
Now the right language has to be found in the words of the mystics: a Buddha will be
helpful, a Lao Tzu will be helpful And scientists ARE looking into the words of the
Buddhas to find the right language, because these are the people who have been talking
about paradox, mystery. And now science is coming across paradoxes.
The greatest paradox is that the electron behaves in such a mysterious way that the
scientist has no language to express it. It behaves simultaneously as a particle and as a
wave. This is impossible, inconceivable for the mind. Either something is a particle or it
is a wave; the same thing cannot be both at the same time.
You know Euclidean geometry: either something is a point or something is a line; one
thing cannot be a point and a line together at the same time. A line means many points
following each other in sequence; a single point cannot function like a line. But that's
now electrons are functioning -- simultaneously as a point and as a line, as a particle and
as a wave. What to make of it? How to say it?
The scientist is dumb. Now he knows that the mystics, who have always been talking in
paradoxes, who have been saying God is far away and very close by, must be saying
something through their experience. The mystics who used to say that life and death are
one, not two, for the first time are becoming relevant to the scientist's mind. A new
science is arising which says it is a science of uncertainty. NO more certainty! Certainty
seems to be too gross.
Mahavira, twenty-five centuries ago, used to make each of his statements with a
'perhaps'. If you asked him, "Is there a God?" he would say, "Perhaps." In those days it
was not understood at all -- because how can you say, "Perhaps"? Either God is or is not.
It seems so simple and so logical: "If God is, God is; if he is not, he is not. What do you
mean by 'perhaps'?"
Now it can be understood. Mahavira was using the same language in religion that is being
used by Albert Einstein in physics. Albert Einstein calls it the theory of relativity.
Mahavira has called his philosophy exactly the same: SAPEKSHAWAD -- the theory of
relativity. Nothing is certain, everything is flexible, fluid. The moment you have said
something, it is no longer the same. Things don't exist, Mahavira says, but only events.
That's what modern science is saying, that there are no things in the world, but only
events. And we cannot say anything absolutely, we cannot say, "This is so." Whenever
somebody says absolutely, "This is so," he is behaving foolishly. In the past he was
thought to be a man of knowledge; the more certain he was, the more it was thought that
he knew. The uncertain person, the hesitating person, was thought to be ignorant.
That's why Mahavira could not influence the world very much; he came too early, he
arrived before his time. Now is the time for him -- now he will be understood by the
scientist, by the highest intelligence in the world. But he was talking to people, the
ordinary masses, who could not understand his SYADAWAD -- his perhaps-ism. People
wanted certain knowledge: "Is there a God?" And Mahavira would say, "Perhaps. Yes --
in one way it can be said yes, and in another it can be said no. And both are right
together, simultaneously."
Now the time has come. Ananda Prabhu, don't try to reconcile things -- that will be a
false phenomenon. Just watch, just look deep into things as they are. They are already
reconciled; there is no conflict in existence. All contraries are complementaries.
YOU SAY: MEDITATIVENESS AND SCIENCE ARE DIFFICULT TO RECONCILE.
If you try to reconcile them it is not only difficult but impossible. It cannot be done. You
will go mad -- the very effort to reconcile them will drive you crazy. Avoid such an
effort. Rather, on the contrary, simply watch.
Life is paradoxical. It is already a synthesis of paradoxes; the opposites are already
meeting in it. All that we need is a pure mirror-like consciousness, so that whatsoever life
is it is reflected. And you will see in that reflection the meeting of the opposites: the
meeting of East and West, the meeting of religion and science.
No comments:
Post a Comment