Co-existence & Reconciliation: What religions can learn from the systems of science and education
Purnananda Guptasarma
Dean of Faculty & Professor HAG (Department of Biological Sciences), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali
Humans ring-fence attitudes towards the subject of religion with a highly-sensitive (and reactive) perimeter of personal (assumed) religious identity.
Such an identity, generally built up over a lifetime, is initially determined by the circumstances of one’s birth, and later influenced by the details of one’s nurture, nature, inclinations, habits, and experiences, as well as one’s degree of exposure to other cultures and religions.
With most people, even today, there is a tendency to remain associated with the status quo.
This tendency is driven by the comfort that derives from continued association with what has always been familiar.
As a result of influences exerted by various social factors, there is also a tendency to conflate religion with cultural traditions, rituals, practices, and habits.
However, things are certainly changing, and changing most profoundly, right under all of our noses.
In fact, just as things are changing in the world(s) of …
(a) profession-seeking (where people increasingly prefer to choose from a range of possible livelihoods, in preference to doing whatever their families have done for generations), and
(b) partner-seeking (where people increasingly prefer to choose who they would like to love, and live with, in preference to doing so with someone possessing an identical cultural background, or as selected by one’s family),
… it seems as if people are also increasingly choosing to be non-religious, or at least non-denominational, with many mentioning the words ‘none’ or ‘not applicable’ while filling in forms that ask for personal information about religion.
Amongst those who choose to be religious, there are clear signs that people are also increasingly exercising choice in respect of the religion that suits their tastes.
These signs have been around for several decades now and, like most trends, first manifest in well-known personalities. Thus, for example, the actor, Richard Gere, who was presumably born into a Christian tradition, has identified himself as a practising Buddhist for quite a few years now. The singer, Cat Stevens, who was presumably also born into a Christian tradition, now identifies himself as a Muslim, and goes by the name of Yusuf Islam.?Almost everyone has heard of Muhammad Ali, who changed his name from his birth-name of Cassius Clay. A well-known Bengali litterateur of the last century, Madhusudhan Dutt, became a Christian and changed his name to Michael Madhusudhan Dutt. More recently, a former academic from Harvard University, Richard Alpert, adopted the Hindu religion and became the disciple of a certain Neem Karoli Baba, and then became a mystic himself, being known as Baba Ramdas.
There have been many others who have joined the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) or followed other paths that are non-denominational, many of which were derived from Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or mixed origins, in India. The Indian mystic known as Shri Ramakrishna is widely known to have serially adopted every known religion then extant in India, practicing each of these for a certain period of time in order to try and explore the many different ways of understanding the concept of religion.
And then, there have been those who have braved the world and wed a spouse of a different religious origin, to create progressive households built upon a mixture of religious traditions, virtues and values, attempting to find and inculcate the common threads of multiple religions within their children.
There are also those who have bravely explored the tenets, and assumptions, of the very same religions that they were born into, to build up a saga of personal inquiry and exploration within the safe confines of a familiar culture, each according to his/her own curiosity and desire.
What such instances, and many more like them, point towards is the growing acceptance of the possibility that religion could also become a matter of personal liking and preference, rather than merely something that one happens to be born into. These instances also suggest a growing preference for the expression of personal freedom, and a spirit of exploration, and personal growth, concomitant with an expansion of horizons; all in preference to the stability, or comfort, that derive from one's having a non-curious attitude towards that which one has taken for granted.
To me, religion (shorn of all its social aspects) seems to me to be just the activity that a human being engages in when he/she is inclined to make the acquaintance of the source of his/her own being.
To me, it feels like religious activity is (or should be) mainly undertaken by those who feel the need to join themselves back (i.e., re-ligate themselves, so to speak) to the source of their own being.
To this extent, I feel that religion is a process by which humans merely seek to find and know the source from which they are derived.
When we look at ourselves, and at this world, it is clear that we are all currently ‘here’ or, at the very least, that our attention is currently here, in this time and place, and experiencing whatever it is that we are experiencing.
What is not at all clear to us is ‘what’ or ‘who’ we are, as well as ‘why’ we are whatever we are.
Who are we?
Are we the matter of this body?
Are we the matter that we see in the mirror every day, or when we look at another part of ourselves? Are we the matter that we feel when one part of our body makes contact with another part of our body?
Are we energy?
Are we the energy that enervates and energizes the body, and makes the body capable of sensing its environment, and acting to change that environment?
Are we the mind?
Are we the mind that appears to process different sensory inputs, engage in thoughts, take decisions, and send out instructions (for the implementation of those decisions)?
Or are we consciousness?
Are we the consciousness that is conscious of the fact that we are currently here?
Are we the consciousness that is conscious of all the matter that makes up this body and its surroundings, AND all the energy that runs around in this body and its surroundings, AND all of the mind-stuff that engages in thoughts (about the body; about energy; about everything else, including itself)? How do we reconcile and integrate all this into a seamless experience of being conscious?
Well, quite clearly, nobody who is currently on the planet is a fool.
Everybody understands that each human being is actually an admixture of all four of the above things. This is why every language and culture on earth has words that speak of the body, the senses/energy, the mind, and consciousness.
That is not the question at all.
Everyone agrees that there are four things and that each human being is constituted of all four things. Of course, some merge matter and energy into a single entity and speak of a human being as a ‘triune’ entity; one that is made up of matter/energy, mind and consciousness. However, for the purposes of this article, we shall continue to speak of four: matter, energy, mind and consciousness.
The question is really this: Which of the four holds primacy?
Which of the four is self-generated, and capable of both giving rise to itself and to everything else, besides?
Which of the four is that which subsumes everything, and into which everything merges back, once all is said and done?
Does matter hold primacy, and give rise to energy, mind and consciousness?
Or does energy hold primacy, giving rise to matter, mind and consciousness?
Or does the mind hold primacy, giving rise to matter, energy and consciousness?
Or does consciousness hold primacy, giving rise to matter, energy, and the mind?
What if each of these ‘appears’ to be capable of birthing the other three, whether in reality or even as an illusion, from a human viewpoint?
What if each of these is constantly flowing into one of the others, with all of them being actually made up of a single reality?
If indeed this is the case, which is the one that constitutes that single reality, i.e., the one reality that started it all?
Is it matter, energy, mind or consciousness?
Here is a thought:
That which distinguishes one religion from another is what each religion holds to be primary, or secondary, or tertiary, or quaternary.
All religions hold that all four things (matter, energy, mind and consciousness) exist, and also that they are all real, and probably also inter-convertible (which they must be, inter-alia, if all four are actually born of a single reality), arising from one reality and merging back into that one reality.
What they argue about seems to be based upon which of the four they consider to be primary, in the depths of their own origins, beings, and subscribers.
Some religions focus upon only one of the four. Some focus on more than one, but differ in respect of which one they hold to be primary, and which one (or ones) they hold to be derivatives. Yet others focus on all of them, with different sub-groups holding different things to be primary.
Therefore, it is of no wonder that different religions, and different sub-groups within religions, all of whom seek to identify and know that one reality, are constantly arguing amongst themselves.
I write this article with one express purpose in mind.
It is to point towards two definite things that the world(s) of religion could potentially learn from the world(s) of science, and education.
I do not know whether these words and ideas will be of any use, to any reader. That is not my lookout. I am just writing it and putting it up on the internet, as an article. So, dear reader (of the present moment, or of some future moment) I put this up to you, and I leave this to you to deal with as you desire. Laugh about, talk about it, think about it, or ignore it.
?1. What the world of religion can learn from the world of science:
The worlds of science teach us to accept the coexistence of multiple (apparently non-overlapping) paradigms, and to accept that each of these paradigms can be both true (and apparently complete, and self-consistent, from a certain angle of viewing) as well as quite untrue (and apparently incomplete, from a different angle of viewing). The worlds of science also use symbolisms, and do not confuse the symbols for the real things, or the means for the ends.
The most easily identified examples that can be cited from the world of science, in this regard, are the current levels of acceptance of Newtonian (classical), Relativistic and Quantum mechanics.
Each of these paradigms of mechanics is held to be true, and applicable, within its own domain and frame of reference, and irrelevant or inappropriately applicable in a different domain and frame of reference.
There is no fighting.
Every scientist happily accepts all three paradigms as a way of understanding the physical world.
So, scientists use Newtonian mechanics to understand the behaviour of particles moving at ordinary velocities, but use relativistic mechanics to understand the behaviour of particles accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, and use quantum mechanics to understand the behaviour of particles that pop into (and out of) existence in the material realm from the quantum realm (where they exist as probabilities).
Every object is accepted to be both a particle, and a wave, i.e., as a wave with a wavelength that varies with the size of the object, and its characteristics.
The world of physics has also been busy for several decades now, adding a further paradigm to all this; one that involves strings (or superstrings), i.e., multi-dimensional entities that are imagined to remain in constant vibration at every imaginable frequency, in some dimensions and frames of reference, while remaining curled up in respect of the other dimensions and frames of reference.
Each of these paradigms of science is accepted as being a partially true way of describing the behaviour of things.
Each is true and complete, or untrue and incomplete, depending on the frame of reference. None is considered to be complete, either in and of itself, or as the most relevant or even the highest truth.
Most importantly of all, they co-exist; each with its own uses.
Thus, while we recognize that Earth’s motion in space is described by Newtonian Mechanics, we also recognize that this is true only within the frame of reference of the solar system.
This does not stop us from recognizing that the Earth’s motion, when considered from a viewing point that is located at the other end of the visible universe (which is conceived to move, relative to us, at a velocity close to that of light) may be interpreted using relativistic mechanics.
Indeed, relativistic mechanics is also applied on much smaller scales, e.g., to understand, from the viewing point of an observer on Earth, the motion of stars circling the gigantic black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, since these stars orbit the black hole at velocities that constitute a significant fraction of the speed of light. Relativistic mechanics is also applied to even smaller scales, e.g., to understand the motion of electrons.
So, my point is this.
When the worlds of science can accept the simultaneous applicability of multiple paradigms, why can’t the worlds of religions similarly accept all of the different religions (including their own) to all be incompletely true?
Why can’t they accept that each religion may be attempting to describe existence at a different level, or over a different multitude of levels?
Why can we not consider the possibility that ultimate reality (whatever that might be) remains hidden from the common gaze, with each religion describing something that could be considered to be both true, and untrue, to different degrees, in different contexts, and in different frames of reference, allowing any seeker of reality to pick and choose according to personal preference?
To extend this aspect of the discussion that I seem to have started here, I shall now point to four kinds of religions in the following paragraphs, as hinted upon already in the previous discussions about matter, energy, mind and consciousness.
Each of these kinds of religion is posited below to be akin to a paradigm in the worlds of science.
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Each is held to posit a unity that underlies all diversity; a unity that gives rise to all diversity and into which all diversity presumably, ultimately resolves.
Each gives this unity a name, ‘God’.
(A)??Religions that hold matter to be most important.
?Closest to everyday reality, there is a group of religions that believes in the divine nature of matter; in the divine nature of food, and nutrition; and in the divine nature of the non-physical entities that populate the so-called mineral world, or the world of physical matter, constituted of solids, liquids, gases, plasma and something else that gets called the ether (for want of a better word); the ether is posited to give rise to (i.e., birth) itself, and the other four forms of matter, being something that both generates all forms of matter and also subsumes all forms of matter.
?This group of religions attempts to imagine a reality that is almost physical; or one that lies just behind the curtain of the physical world; one that is itself manifest, and capable of adopting physical forms, or taking up residence within a physical object; however, while remaining just beyond the pale of the visible.
?These religions hold matter itself to be the most primary of all substances and principles. They hold matter to be self-generated and capable of transmuting between different forms, with everything else being a derivative of matter, including all forms of energy, mind, and consciousness. Such religions hold matter itself to be what they would like to call by the name ‘God’.
?These religions consider matter to be filled with (or imbued with the essence of) God. They consider this universe of matter to be the very body of God. They symbolize and idolize God in matter.
?(B)??Religions that hold energy, and energetic forms (including the senses) to be most important.
?Then, there are the religions that believe in the divine nature of the senses; in the divine nature of the energies that constitutes the different senses, and the means of actuation within living bodies that respond to what is being sensed; in the divine nature of a variety of forms of energy that go by the names of gods, angels, archangels, demons, archdemons, and the like, that populate various realms of existence that are known as the sub-astral or astral realms, each of which (or each of whom) represents a gross or subtle form of energy, or a sense, or a sense organ, or an organ of action, relating to every one of the functions considered necessary for keeping things going, in these denser worlds of matter.
?The religions that hold energy to be the most important thus posit that while matter and energy can interconvert, it is mainly energy (i.e., energy and energetic forms) that drive the congealing, or condensation, of energy into matter, with the large bulk of energy remaining uncongealed into matter, instead of being locked up in matter.
?Thus, while accepting that energy can give rise to matter, and that matter can also give rise to energy, they hold energy to be preeminent,
?These religions attempt to imagine a unified reality that is constituted of a manifest multiplicity that is also born of a core duality that underlies everything; a duality which produces and recombines qualities with different intensities; a reality, within which everything also has its equal opposite; a reality, within which everything ultimately emanates from a single unified source, and also returns to this source, after undergoing some recombination.
?This single source (referred to by different names, in different human languages) is held by all of these religions that subscribe to the pre-eminence of energy to be the very powerhouse of all life, energy and light, in the universe.
?This powerhouse (which is sometimes referred to as “the flame with a thousand, or more, tongues”) is conceived to sustain all of the physical worlds of matter, as well as the sub-astral and astral worlds in which the senses operate as forms of energy, lying just beneath manifest physicality.
?Therefore, such religions describe that one, single powerhouse of life, light and energy to be the very definition of a unified divinity (or God); an entity that both exists apart from everything else (being transcendent), and also within everything that exists (being immanent); existing within every one of the different forms that is taken up by living or non-living matter.
?Many different names are given to this unified source, and to the various forms that it takes (in the form of different qualities) to create, sustain and destroy experiences within space-time.
?This group of religions thus holds energy to be the primary principle that both creates everything, and also senses everything. They hold energy to be self-generated and capable of transmuting between different forms, and of giving rise to various forms of energy and physical matter, i.e., they hold everything other than energy to be a derivative of energy, including matter, the mind, and consciousness.
?These religions hold energy to be God.
?(C)??Religions that hold the mind to be most important.
Then, there are the religions that believe in the divine nature of the mind, and of ideas, and concepts, and of chains of causes and effects that appear to guide the existence, and behaviour, of matter, and of the senses (and of energy), within space-time.
?These religions too imagine a single unified mind that functions as the source of all minds, and of all matter, with the mind itself being (and behaving) both as the observer of everything that takes place within space-time, and as that which is observed, i.e., with the mind fragmenting into many entities to experience itself through the many worlds of space-time; with every one of the concepts of transcendence, immanence, and unity underlying diversity that were applicable to the ‘astral’ existence of energy (and the senses constituted thereof) also now being applicable to the more fundamental and ‘causal’ existence, and nature, of the mind.
?This group of religions thus holds the mind to be the primary principle, self-generated and transmuting between different forms, and also giving rise to all forms of energy and senses, matter, as well as consciousness, i.e., with everything else being a derivative, and the mind being the primary principle that underlies everything.
?These religions hold the mind to be God.
?(D)?Religions that hold consciousness to be most important.
?Finally, there are the religions that believe in the divine nature of consciousness; it being what it is.
?Not much can be said about consciousness, which is something that is even less understood than the mind, and also perhaps something that can only be experienced (without ever being fully understood, at least by the mind) with this experience of consciousness itself also failing to constitute a true description of consciousness.
?Truly, it is difficult to say anything at all about consciousness apart from the fact that we ourselves, as humans, appear to be conscious, both in the wakeful state, and in dreams.
The religions that believe in the divine nature of consciousness hold that consciousness is the one, true, God; standing apart from time.
In the eternal debate about whether matter gives rise to energy, mind and consciousness, or whether energy gives rise to matter, mind and consciousness, or whether the mind gives rise to matter, energy and consciousness, or whether consciousness gives rise to matter, energy, the mind and itself, this last group of religions holds that it is consciousness which gives rise to everything.
These religions thus hold consciousness to be the primary principle, self-generated and transmuting between different forms and giving rise to everything in the worlds of the mind, energy, and matter, in these worlds of space-time.
?Once again, here, consciousness is posited to stand apart (i.e., beyond space-time) from everything, in a state that is transcendent and indescribable.
It is also posited to permeate everything, in a state that is immanent, and ever-present.
?These religions hold consciousness to be God.
?Importantly, some of them also recognize that the words that we use here, i.e., ‘to be’, cannot really be applied to consciousness, if it is indeed both self-generated (within space-time) but something that actually lies beyond space-time, because in order ‘to be’ or ‘to be generated’ time must pass.
?So, these religions say that “consciousness is what it is, although one cannot even say that anything actually ‘is’ in reality, including consciousness”.
For as long as one has not experienced the truth of any one of these four types of religion within oneself, they might all be thought to be either correct, and true, or all incorrect, and untrue, if truth (and reality) indeed lie beyond words and descriptions, and each religions remains true in its own sphere, and frame, of reference.
Therefore, I hope that the reader will consider it possible that the different forms of religion are indeed very akin to the different paradigms of science.
The different paradigms of science accept each other’s (relative, or graded) truths, and eventually all come to a comfortable state of co-existence.
Further, science and engineering work with matter, and with energy.
Increasingly, science and engineering also work with, and through, the mind, attempting to study it, describe it, and manipulate it through matter (through the use of mind-manipulating substances) and by using the mind to develop devices that can fool the mind (by augmenting reality and creating an artificial reality).
Science and engineering also attempt to explore consciousness, or at least the part of consciousness that is responsible for the so-called ‘collapsing of the wave function’ in quantum physics, in which an observer appears to influence what is observed, ostensibly through the exercise of consciousness.
The important thing to be noted here is that science and scientists manage to do all this without fighting violently for the supremacy of any one paradigm.
Just as science accepts that the state of the mind (or its interface, known as the brain) affects the levels and types of chemicals that are secreted by the glands in the human body, science also accepts that the levels and types of chemicals that are secreted by the glands can influence the brain (and, therefore, the mind).
There is no problem in accepting that apparent causality runs from one thing to the other in both directions, and to other things in every conceivable direction.
Science thus accepts that even if some paradigms appear to be more refined than others, each paradigm exists in a state of bidirectional exchange, and interaction, with everything else, exercising some apparent autonomy and some apparent inter-dependence.
Why then do religions fight so violently for supremacy about their paradigms?
Why do they not let each human being subscribe to whatever appeals to him/her, if indeed something does appeal to any human being at all?
Why can’t a family, or a community, or a nation, exist with subscribers to all of the above, or none of the above?
After all, reality (like a rose) by any name must be just as sweet. What disturbs the sweetness is the disagreement, and the fighting.
2. What the many worlds of religion can learn from the many worlds of education:
Multiple educational systems can potentially co-exist, with each being either less, or more, expansive than the other in their range, and reach, and with each also containing within themselves a multitude of different paradigms and sub-systems.
Let us take some examples from real life to understand, and appreciate, this.
Different educational bodies oversee education.
The Montessori, Kindergarten and Nursery systems all oversee the education of infants.
The education boards of different districts, counties, states and nations oversee the education that is imparted in junior school, middle school, high school and senior school. With these, the level of instruction that is imparted also varies.
Thus, junior schoolers are not taught anything about matter which is subtle.
Middle schoolers are taught that all matter is made up of atoms.
High schoolers or senior schoolers are taught about subatomic particles, radioactive transmutations of elements, and all the rest of that.
The teachers of these different schools do not fight amongst themselves.
They know that students need to gradually learn of truths that are more and more subtle, in a graded system of education.
The university systems oversee education at the level of the Bachelors’, Masters, or Ph.D degrees, in the arts, sciences, humanities and commerce.
And then, there are the other bodies, also deemed to be universities, which oversee the education of doctors, engineers, lawyers, managers, economists and such, at the Bachelors’, Masters, or Ph.D levels.
Interestingly, certain systems span a larger range than others.
For example, in the country called India, some educational systems oversee everything from Kindergarten all the way up to a Ph.D., e.g., the educational system in Dayalbagh, located in Agra, India, which is known as the Dayalbagh Educational Institute (DEI). Either directly, or through an apex committee that it influences, the DEI has oversight over every level of education. It ensures that the Ph.D scholars do not argue with kindergarteners, since the value of both lies in the fact that they are human (and possess a human consciousness) and that the kindergartener might eventually turn into the Ph.D scholar, and then (possibly) also back into the kindergartener, in the next cycle of existence known as an incarnation.
On the other hand, there are other systems, e.g., deemed universities like the AcSIR (Academy of Scientific and Industrial Research), located in Delhi, India, which only oversee studies that are conducted at the level of the Ph.D.
How odd would it be, if the AcSIR were to take every infant, or school-going child, or college-going child, and insist to them (or to their parents) that the only system of education which would be applicable henceforth would be at the level of a Doctorate of philosophy, science, medicine or law?
Wouldn’t this be odd?
And yet, religions are known to do this!
Wouldn’t you suspect insanity, and wonder how people overseeing a Ph.D degree at the AcSIR could be so dense as to not be able to appreciate (i) that infants need to study what they need to study before they can go on to study other things, at the doctoral level, and (ii) that no system of education can be held to be less important, or more important, than any other, since the taking up of one is entirely dependent on the prior taking up of the other, and the gradual maturation that occurs thereby?
And who is to say which is more important, for there is also the possibility that increasing refinement of understanding only results in the growth of the ego which, in turn, comes before a fall!
Likewise, how odd would it be if the IIT (Indian Institutes of Technology) system in India were to insist that henceforth all fields of study would need to include engineering at the Bachelors’ level!
I think that I have gone on for long enough already, in this stream-of-consciousness piece.
I hope that I have been able to sufficiently express my continued surprise (despite already having spent fifty-five years on this planet) about the fact that religions and religious denominations fight and argue for inter-faith supremacy while continuing to claim to strive towards inner-faith unity, whereas the worlds of science and education have learned to live in some semblance of peace, co-existence, reconciliation, harmony and unity, even while they scatter themselves in every direction, reaching out for newer horizons to conquer, in the external world. It’s a conundrum, if there ever was one.
In any case, as many have argued, the religions of the past (all of them) have now begun to appear to many humans to be mere kernels because of their excessive emphasis on the outer life and lack of emphasis on the inner life.
Inner life is what science and education currently enjoy, which is something that few religions currently appear to do. Perhaps there will come a day when they will all merge, and religion will become one more form of science, full of excitement, questioning, seeking, fulfilment, harmony, and bliss, with the search for unity carried out at the physical, energetic, mental and consciousness levels, in pursuit of knowledge, also resulting in the understanding that comes from personal realization of the nature of it all.
director at inst of microbial technology
3 年The article is illuminating and though provoking. However the main stumbling block to mystical enquiry within the confines of most present day religions is that religion has become a political tool. Ones religion is also symbolic of group social identity. Both together create a strong means for indoctrination and emotional black mail of successive generations. The least common denominator in human behaviour is self interest and survival. How do we break free and seek the truth? Food for thought.