This seeker was forced to attend to the above question now, as the present day world is witnessing vicious clashes between religions and cultures over whose version of TRUTH, or whose way towards God / life and ultimate reality is right. I am referring to the present day movement of two or three world religions,Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, ascertaining supremacy of their particular religious paths. If one is in an attempt to conquer the world and bring her under one Caliphate, and establish the supremacy of their way over the rest of mankind, the other,( Hindus) in a never before revival of their claim of supremacy of their ways over the other sects&religions in their country, India ! Buddhists are said to be a threat to the Muslim/other minority in Myanmar,( Burma) whose Election is scheduled to be held this week to decide who would be the next RULER ( November 2015)
No religion is continuing the search for the core truth about God, or the ultimate reality behind life and existence. The clamor is all around the life-path that leads to Him; various rituals, belief systems,myths,life-styles that include food-habits too. Buddhists, though NOT believing in a supreme God, are sure about the existence of a right-path of behavior to lead a good-life during the tenure of man on earth. But, they too are intolerant towards the 'other' men ( not akin to their ways ) in their country, despite their obligation to adhere to the right-path doctrines.
This post is to APPEAL to all religions, to continue searching for God and the ultimate truth about life and existence, to save the world one day from mutual annihilation in His name. No religion can afford to close the doors of further inquiry about God and ultimate reality,as what they have now with them are old and out-dated myths, stories and rituals, that create nothing but mutual hatred in human society, fear,division and at times full-fledged wars.
Without any hesitation we could assert that, Religion is spirituality stuck at Ego level of consciousness and human-activity; hence it is engaged in mutual hatred, animosity and assault.The task of our enlightened age is to elevate it to the level of higher consciousness, and a UNIVERSAL SPIRITUALITY sans religious divisions.
In what direction such further research could move is the theme of this write-up. Such directions has been pointed-out at the succeeding-paragraphs.
Science is no where in the contest of claiming who or what is God, as she believes, there is nothing beyond the obvious and the objective in the world ,despite and irrespective of the various very strong evidences she herself witnessed at the sub-atomic (quantum) level of physical reality, that questions even the very notion of her base concept of 'objective' facts, independent of any observer. This washing of the hands by Science from participating in he contest leaves the filed open for unprecedented human-misery,mutual hatred,community-divide and even blood-shed.
Hence, this humble attempt is to throw some serious and fresh light and perspective towards the question of who and what could be the truth behind existence and life, the constitution and ontology of the seeker-MAN, and the logical necessity or advantage of knowing GOD,or the ultimate reality as a PREDILECTION or PREDISPOSITION of Him or it. This seems the only way to end the crisis of WAR over MYTHS and beliefs in modern world, with no sensible way to silence any party. A well acceptable one PATH of seeking out God, or the ultimate reality behind existence is a dire need of modern world.
Who we are, that SEEK God, and WHY ?
What will be taken-up first is about our very entity of man as seekers of God and truth. Science as well religions are yet to seriously ask the question who the seeker of truth-man- is, and why he seeks truth ? Man as the occupier of this planet earth,with certain definite faculties of mind and body to lead a successful tenure of life on earth, is an unverified and blind presupposition for both religions and science. Chief point of this presupposition is around the truth-worthiness of whatever he gains as knowledge on whatever capacity or entity as he finds himself here. How and why he is here on the planet with this particular body and mind mechanism, what are the features and role of his constitution as the seeker and know-er here etc. were never taken-up seriously ever by science. Entire attention was paid to the objects in the external world he observed, not at any time, with the same seriousness, on him self as the OBSERVER.
Religions of course had taken up such questions, but science, due to her status as an institution that acquired immense more relevance and reliability over science,thanks to her fantastic life-altering discoveries and innovations, had side-lined or ignored such realm of religions as subjective fantasies, myths and stories invented by security and certainty seeking,weak minds ! She just looked outside at the external world, and attempted to judge and assess life strictly on the basis of objective realities she found at the physical level. That central question, who and why the question-seeker and enquirer is there on the planet, was never considered relevant by science yet. What ever knowledge his overt, mind-sense mechanism provides as knowledge,was considered reliable and final. Attention was never paid on his constitution and organization as the seeker of knowledge !
All major religions have the basic concept and classification between Ego and real self. Hindu seers,thousands of them,said to have lived in isolated mountains and caves in deep-meditation, and produced some of the best thoughts and ideas about the seeker and seen. In the Upanishads, written by those unknown ancient seekers, there are ample description of the difference between Ego, the entity that lives in life, and the hidden soul that always want to get liberated,breaking the 'delusion' ( Maya) barrier of the Ego.
Hindu thought very particularly refers to the role of Soul as that of a prisoner. Soul is in the prison of ego, always wanting to get liberated. Enlightenment or salvation during the life-time is a total escaping from the 'delusions' and its catch ( the prison). If one could not achieve it in one life-time, he will have to take many re-births, till he is able to achieve the 'escape', and attain liberation. The liberated souls join with its original source, the Brahman, at the end of the journey. But the cycle of life, in the above process, will continue for ever.
Islam also talks about Ego and Soul in Koran.The Sufi tradition especially delves deep into the various organs and stages of Ego and Soul. 'Nafs' is the concept of Ego. It has seven stages of development of ego, from a raw animal self to a more moderate and sober stage.It is the abode of desires, emotions and their gratifications.
Unlike Hindu paradigm of Ego and Soul, Sufism has three aspects of mind; the Nafs, the Qulb and the Ruh.
Qulb is the mediator between the ego and soul. It holds the Divine spark or spirit and is the place of gnosis and deep spiritual knowledge.
Ruh is in direct link with the divine, often its presence unknown ( not conscious ) to ego. Ruh also has seven stages of development or evolution.
Christianity also has their own clear-cut stand on ego-soul division.Though Ego word is no where seen in Bible, very direct reference to the theme is abundant, notably in the synonym called 'body'. The needs of the body are differentiated from the needs of the soul.Needs of the body includes cravings of the mind too, like craving for worldly possessions, fame etc.The craving for wisdom is also decried in Christianity, as it leads the seeker no where. Faith or Trust is the sole path to know and reach God.Surrendering to the will of God,ignoring body and world are her acclaimed virtues.In Christianity, it is the complete human-person who will enter paradise upon salvation,not solely his soul.
The purpose that highlighted in this attempt is the REAL NEED OF SOME KIND OF A SCIENTIFIC LIGHT on the constitution of man's self,that science has not undertaken with any degree of dedication or commitment.It has totally left this realm at the disposal of religions and their myths, on the ground that she deals only with physical objects that are tangible. She think of Mind as a property of physical body, not having a specific constitution of itself,or purpose other than that aids the physical survival of the living organism.
But plain sense of logic suggests that, act of probe about knowing the existential facts must have started from the end-product found in existence- the living beings,especially man, and their KNOWING mechanism and faculties attached to its 'structure', ie. the physical body. This was most important because, the very urge to know was itself a propensity of the mind. Yes, Man can not live peacefully, without a sense of Reality! He will always go on seeking reality! Both Science and religions had born out of this irrepressible urge!
How does man settle for certainty? How does he define his reality?
We will be astonished to find at close scrutiny, that we gain our sense of reality by the principle of 'sharing'.When two or more persons 'share' a myth or belief or an observed fact, it attains the 'status' of reality!Scientific facts are all but our, thus arrived 'mainstream beliefs'!( or superstitions?) Interested readers are invited to visit the following peer-reviewed paper that tries to establish the said fact:http://argumentsagainstscientificpositivism.blogspot.in/2014/05/thescientific-explanation-of-reality.html
How can analyzing part-by part of a car, or its metallurgy could throw even vaguest of idea about the end-product, or the organization called Car? Science's all-out efforts should have started from understanding man, and his organizational stuff called MIND, and the plan if any, and the organization of its purpose,energies and dynamics. Science never entertained the thought and possibility that, beyond matter, the organization of the 'self of man' also might have been an equally, or even more fundamental than the organization and energy system of the Physical.
The chief hurdle on the way of this new task is our limited knowledge about features of 'self' and mind by science; whatever knowledge she has is confined or limited to the 'objective' realm of external world.Objects and organization like ego and soul, she thinks, pertain to a realm beyond the objective and empirical. Moreover, whatever organization she attributes to mind is around its role as an 'aid' to the physical body, for the one and only purpose of life, SURVIVAL.
This seeker ( writer of these lines) who has been in this path of probe since his childhood,have found some very exceptional features of human-mind that had helped man to make Science what it is today. But she is not yet aware of its role in such making of the very discipline of Science. It is the role of our faculty of Reason, that detects inconsistency from consistency when science relates causes and effects, consistency or ORDER between evidences and conclusions, and similar ORDER or consistency between analogy and its object or relation in comparison. While collecting evidences and forming hypotheses are work of the empirical,objective method of science, the more vital and central role cited above, that of our faculty of Reason in every scientific deduction, has not yet been recognized or accepted by her !
Why man's faculty of Reason and its role in every scientific feat is very special, has been explained in our dedicated blog-post:http://philosopherskorner.blogspot.in/, and also in the Amazon.com book by this author at link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008NOEE9I
While coming face-to-face with the said, not yet recognized and accepted (by mainstream world ) special faculties of our phenomenon of Reason, we will also become aware of a new path of acquiring knowledge, beyond the objective paradigm of science.
It opens a door that makes us realize that, indeed the so called huge-bundle of scientific knowledge has reached us NOT in the typical objective manner,independent of the observer, but with the aid of a certain,not yet recognized and understood faculty of mind,our internal sense-organ of Reason !. This amazing knowledge and awareness could give man a new confidence to enter a new path of going after Ego and Soul, and the constitution of his self, in the most scientific manner and spirit.
For the above initiative, what science need to shed is her prejudice about spiritual research as something outside her range of subjects. Leave all pre-notions of religious piousness,faith and worship, typically related to religions, and approach the subject with the keen sense and spirit of scientific inquiry. Here, author seeks the attention every man of mind and scientist to the very recent merger of Galaxy named ' NGC 6052 at Hercules constellation, with another nearby Galaxy. ( ref. NASA reports about the findings of Hubble telescope) NASA report says:
' as the merging process continues,individual stars are thrown-out of their original orbits and placed onto entirely new paths,some very distant from the region of collision itself....the highly-chaotic shape of events will eventually settle-down into a STABLE-SHAPE,which may not resemble either of the two Galaxies...it is in fact a NEW Galaxy in the process of forming'
What should prevent our scientific-spirit from inferring that, there genuinely exists a 'tendency' or a propensity towards attainment of some kind of an ORDER in existence,or universe, behind all the apparent chaos and disorder ? What should prevent our common-sense to infer that, if the physical-stuff is compared to a hardware, there should necessarily be a not-yet recognized and identified 'SOFTWARE too in existence/universe, that control such mergers and orderly realignment of the physical-stuff of the universe ?
Invite readers to share more on this hardware;software paradigm at link: http://patternsofapproachtodiscoverreality.blogspot.in/
This parallel initiative might open-up a new field for Science; as to how to look at human-personality in a new light, its constitution, energy dynamics that are involved, accepting other forms of energy and forces beyond physical energies in existence etc. Please refer a few helpful links that handled these subjects the most scientific way: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.in/2015/03/the-rationale-of-being-existentially.html.
How important for Science to probe the energy and component level constitution of the seeker, man, and how smartly she could take-up at an equally sensible and rational way about his constitution, is shared at links: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/2013/08/thinking-understanding-it-as-internal.html,
http://selfandworldblogs.blogspot.in/2015/03/is-world-absolute-object-or-relative.html
and http://hiddenobserveronthelimitationsofmind.blogspot.in/
While the first post is about general features of human ego, some irrefutable evidences on the Creative-choices in life and world that might point to factors antagonistic to the Survival theory etc, the 2nd post reveals and presents a convincing proposition about the constitution of man's self, and its hidden but observable energy and component dynamics.This post introduces 'World' as necessary SPACE for the emergence as well as sustainability of ego. Third post elaborately deals with the phenomenon called HUMAN-THOUGHT.
The above referred three blog-posts, each one much dedicated studies on the possible scheme of nature as to how smartly she might have had devised the entity of man, to be posted at planet earth has been elaborated. .
Conclusion is that, the truth seeking man is NOT a simple and safe pre-supposition that such a prestigious discipline like Science could blindly adopt without questioning. When the absolutely relative position of the OBSERVER is revealed, the kind and range of knowledge and truths he could seek-out also will be out in better-light !
What could be the truth or mystery behind existence ?
Science can not ever objectively explain an infinite ( space as well as time) universe:Though Science already have many typically PHYSICAL,zero-sum explanations and theories for the natural emergence of universe, we know, they are not different from similar stories that religions offer.Categories like Time and space, with their really in-explainable features, will remain chief hurdles for an objective science to link the world to them.By no means of the objective science, we could explain 'infinity' feature of time and space, as infinity is a category not belongs to science. Would share here a peer-reviewed paper that delves deeply into this aspect of science:http://argumentsagainstscientificpositivism.blogspot.in/
Ignoring the end-product-man and life, Science adopted bottom to top approach, ie. from atoms to man: This subject with an example has already been taken-up in the beginning of this paper, that of trying to understand a car by studying its components individually.
The motivation to understand world and life has emerged in the obvious end-product, Man.His experience realm was responsible and behind the emergence of such urge for truth and reality. Experiences of man is almost 75% emotional and conceptual, compared to what he directly experience as physical world. Just by opening a dictionary or a Thesaurus, and counting the contained words will revel the truth of this claim.
This particular fact should have compelled at least a new science to look at the essence of universe at an emotional angle ! Why an emotional element shouldn't have been there in the stuff that we observe and experience as universe,existence,world and life ? Such a reference to emotion need not carry science to doubt that, the subject of discussion is now drawing towards religious angles. Not at all. Science, if her spirit of inquiry is truly open and unprejudiced, she should be able to look at this reference to Emotion with an equally detached manner, the same way she look at other physical realities and phenomena of the world !
She should sincerely analyse, why she was tempted at the inception stage of Science, to view universe as a physical reality ? What was her motivations behind adopting such a stand, and continue searching for ultimate reality in the physical direction ? Veteran Scientist Alfred North Whitehead wrote:
" Discussions on the method of Science wander off onto the topic of experiment. But experiment is nothing else than a mode of cooking the facts for the sake of exemplifying the law" . ( From his address 'Foresight',given at Harvard business School)
Why existence or universe shouldn't be looked at with an 'emotional element' at its core has been touched at an already referred link above: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.in/2015/03/the-rationale-of-being-existentially.html. An additional post on the subject is an already given above link: http://patternsofapproachtodiscoverreality.blogspot.in/
Our top three religions in the world, while tightening their grip on their existing divine myths and stories,should be ready to loosen the hold a bit without fear, and see if more reliable realities,of course more divine and pious than their existing-ones, could be arrived at, leading to a living tie-with such emotional center of existence ! Man need not abandon and alienate his God and Truth at realms far-away in time and space, and live his life fighting each-other and hating each other, or waiting for a final judgement day of his actions after death. New knowledge if sought,combining spiritual and scientific seeking as one, might enable man to break the old wall of time-space between Him and man ! Man could definitely drag God out of old His old mythical abodes and realms, and allow him to live among us.
In other words, if science gets ready to abandon her aversion towards spiritual-realm, a much wealthy new field of research and seeking awaits her in future. Such a step only will end the vicious fight,hatred and wars that religious men fought each other in modern world, in the name of a God,whom no party clearly knows.
Such an opening-up from the part of religious-heads, or an attitudinal shift to understand reality behind existence in a better-way, will end the dependence on the faith-oriented stories,myths, rituals, and life-styles. Understanding God, or the ultimate essence behind existence and life as HIS singular predilection or predisposition will end all the differences that make man attack and kill each other today. Look at any known object or phenomenon in the world; it will definitely have a certain predilection or predisposition ( in the language of science, properties) So, in the case of ultimate reality behind existence too, She or He or It, definitely have a certain base predisposition or predilection, which, with the every might of man's sense of reason, common-sense and wisdom, can not be other than SINGULAR. Or in other words, the predisposition of that God will be one and Singular for every one. It can not ever be two kinds. An agreement on such one and only predilection /Predisposition of God, or he ultimate reality could definitely end man's fight over rituals,myths,holy-books and life-style.
She/He/It, a Loving and caring stuff at base level, which no religion could refute, could be Angry and Vengeful with some one, at certain times. But a new Scientific-religious joint venture and effort would bring-in proper studies and knowledge, and even direct liaison with such essence itself, at some point in future. Now science assume that there is NOTHING-UP above. But laying hand on the ultimate emotional predilection of universe might enable Science to interact with Her/Him one day !
Hence, the conclusive answer to this sub-question is that, existence and life can not ever be a ZERO-SUM game as science claims ! If there is any substance to the word and concept of MEANING, it is around LIFE that we all are in ! Our tendency to judge life and existence as 'zero-sum' without any substance and meaning was the result of the developments in a particular period in history, wherein man was a victim of the hegemony of an institution, (Church) who had subdued his mind for centuries together,without recognizing its needs to be independent and free. Human mind, hence, in a fit reaction, discarded everything that MIND produced, and was compelled to accept only what was empirical and obvious to his KNOWN faculties of mind as true !
The immediate necessity is to end the mutual-fear, attack and killing in the name of an unknown God, who never, repeat, never, would be an Object from whom such negative emotions and actions will ever emerge!
Authored by: Abraham J.Palakudy
( A seeker of truth and reality in fields of philosophy, spirituality, mind, Human reason and Polity)
Our web and blog pages : www.conscienceofhesociety.com/blog
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