Guiding Light: Science & Spirituality
· Free Press Journal
The meaning of life has been one of the fundamental issues in
philosophy, theology and religion. The aim of true education is to
attain self-knowledge pursuing the path of self-discovery. Of what use
is any form of knowledge, vocational, professional or technical, if we
lack knowledge of the self?
Spirituality begins with the quest to know the self, and this quest is
endless in itself. Spirituality makes us raise the fundamental
question: What is man? Or, to put it more personally, what am I? It is
precisely this self-knowledge that we must seek, in order to find
complete fulfilment.
Science is the discovery of nature’s laws, while spirituality is the
discovery of the Self. In the final analysis, both are discoveries;
both are an experience of “awareness”. Our rishis had this
“awareness”; they gained spiritual knowledge through intuition and
referred to spirituality as atma vidya.
Science and spirituality are two faces of the same coin– one deals
with the material, the other with the Spirit. One works with the
visible, the other with the invisible. One is concerned with the
outer, the other with the inner.
Science involves the mind; spirituality is entwined with the heart.
Science with the heart will be the religion of the future. Science
endeavours to uncover the abstract principles underlying nature.
Spirituality enables us to do this in a proper way.
Inevitably one supports the other. I believe, science without
spirituality is lame, and spirituality without science is blind. Both
must go hand in hand.
(Dada J P Vaswani was a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed
writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian
spiritual leader.)
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