Transcript for Sraddhalu Ranade - The Quest to Find Reality

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The Quest to Find Reality

See, modern science is essentially a quest to find reality.

Sraddhalu Ranada, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India, Scientist, Ethnographic Scholar

It starts with the recognition that the world, as it appears to be, is not what it is.

And behind this appearance are processes which are hidden to us.

And it goes through a process of digging through appearances, layer by layer,

and we say, "Oh, this is made of cotton," and we go deeper and we say, "it's not cotton, it's molecules,"

which are themselves made of elements, which are themselves made of atoms,

which are themselves made of subatomic particles and which are all, essentially, energy.

Now this is the farthest that science has gone to.

It says the most essential reality of this whole cosmos is a massive ocean of energy

that's flowing in certain rhythms

and the rhythms repeating themselves appear to us as particles and atoms and molecules and stable substance.

And actually, there is no stable substance here. This is 99.999% empty space

in which is a wordly energy and this is what science comes to.

And still, it wants to find something, an ultimity of everything,

in which, even the working of that energy will be consolidated into a oneness.

This, it has not yet been able to do.

The ancient, spiritual traditions of the world also were looking for the ultimate reality.

Their approach was not through the senses, but by an introspective process.

Because it said, "I myself am a product of that ultimate reality, so if I go back into my own identity, I will get back to that ultimate reality."

So by subjective, introspective process,

they followed the same journey that science has done through external sensory approach and came to the same conclusion.

So, I speak here of the Indian tradition that said, "the whole universe is an expression of chit-shakti."

"Shakti" means power, energy. But it is not a mechanical energy, it is a conscious energy, "chit."

So, "chit-shakti," conscious energy.

A conscious energy is the basis of this whole world

and energy itself is supported by a consciousness that chooses to flow by certain rhythms.

And this is the point where science meets spirituality.

Because science has a very big problem. Having discovered all the formulas of physics,

it asks a simple question and that's the ultimity of everything that it's looking for.

Why are the formulas the way they are? Why is E=mc2 and not m2 c or m divided by c2 or any other combination?

And science doesn't have an answer.

Wolfgang Pauli was one of those who--I think--

--he was a discoverer of many subatomic particles and various theories of quantum mechanics--

--and I believe it was him who said, "After I die, the first question that I will ask of God is why the formula was like this."

And this is a point where science cannot explain because the formulas stand.

And we don't even know if the formulas are constant.

You probably know of universal constants, like the gravitational constant and other measurements.

We don't know if they change over time. The speed of light, is it a constant?

Does it change over time? And there's some evidence to show that.

So, science really does not know why the formulas are the way they are,

it just describes the universe on the basis of some formulas, but it doesn't know why the universe is the way it is.

And the answer is in chit-shakti, conscious energy.

A conscious energy that intentionally follows certain rhythms and patterns of its self expression.

And the formulas are a description of its habitual patterns.

But the formulas are habits of that consciousness and they could be changed.

And this is what the ancient yogis discovered,

that by going back to that consciousness, which is the creative power,

they could modify the laws of physics, override them at will,

and the result was extraordinary, parapsychological, magical phenomena--

--that they could create at will, without any formula. It was just a will of consciousness and the thing happens.

So at this point, you find a meeting point between science and spirituality.

Both recognize that there is an essential reality, that it is one--that all derives from that oneness.

Both come to the point that it is an energy.

Science doesn't yet recognize that it is conscious--though the focus of all its research today is really at that level of what is consciousness?

Even in physics, a subatomic particle changes behavior according to the observer's intentions--

--and has touched consciousness, but--not yet recognized that consciousness is prior to the energy--

--and is the cause of the energy-- which the spiritual scientists recognized.

And they went one more step, the consciousness itself is a consciousness of bliss.

It is a blissful one self existence that consciously pours out to become the cosmos and the big bang, etc.

And so it is said, "Everything in the universe is ultimately an expression of a divine bliss."

But, in the present forms, the divinity--its consciousness and its bliss--is more covered than revealed.

When that bliss leaks out, through forms, we see beauty, we experience love, we see harmony.

And ultimately, the whole evolution is meant to manifest that divine bliss.

We ourselves, as conscious, evolving beings, can realize that consciousness--and its full creative power and its divine bliss--

--in the whole expression of life.

So the journey of life, they said, was to realize our origin and then to manifest the divine potential in us.

So science and spirituality meet at one point and then the spiritual shows the further way,

which science can also follow or it can simply accept. It's left to us.

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