Transcendental Nectar of Sadhu-Sanga

by

Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, Ph.D.

Dear Mr Das and Friends,

We appreciate your messages to this list because they demonstrate a willingness to enter into a dialogue on a subject of mutual interest, and help to avoid turning this list into a monologue on my own views. We encourage other intelligent responses.

 
Intelligent Critique of Science is not a slothful criticism of it.

 
It is necessary to be always mindful that as we present a much needed intelligent critique of science, we want to scrupulously avoid descending into a slothful criticism of science. Our purpose is to upgrade science for the 21^st century, to bring it into harmony with religion, as much as bring an upgraded religion into harmony with science. It is the blossoming of 21^st Century Science and Religion that is the goal of the project we call the Harmony of Science and Religion.

 
Science and Religion are supported by a metaphysical background.

 
We have yet to deal with the question, "What is Religion." That will come in the next installment, if there are no further questions about "What is Science." Science gathers information about the World (or Nature) through sense experience. This experience is processed through the intellect and the type of knowledge we produce is fully dependent upon the kind of metaphysics we embrace, i.e. our concept of ultimate reality. Thus metaphysics is not only essential to the type of science we embrace, but is also fundamental to the religion of a people, their moral behavior, type of government, etc.

 
There is no need to be apologetic about introducing God and the soul into the modern discourse. They hold their rightful and noble place in the historical development of Mankind, without which the present would not be what it is today. We owe our present stand to what has gone on before us. Those who would discard the past so blithely are not as wise as Jesus the Christ, who said. "Do not think I have come to abolish the ancient laws and prophets, but to fulfill them."[Matt.  5:17] In the Mahabharata we find Yudhistira saying, mahanjano yena gatah sa panthah [Vana-parva (313.117)], we must not abandon, but follow the path given by the great souls. We will have more to say on this in future installments.

 
Properly understanding the difference between mechanics and reductionism.

Mechanics forms an essential part of physics. Its principles play an essential role in the daily activities of any civilized people. The failure to cultivate proper knowledge of mechanics can only have negative consequences for society. But to consider that such principles should apply in a field beyond physics, such as in chemistry or biology, amounts to what is called abstract reductionism. Mechanics depends on the maintenance of the rigid identity of bodies in interaction with one another. This is clearly inapplicable in the field of chemistry where identities are purely relational. For example, an acid is determined only in relation to a base (alkali), and their product is a neutral salt in which all quality of their original acidity or alkalinity is lost. Thus here we are dealing with principles that are totally different from those of mechanics.

 
Furthermore, chemistry cannot encompass biology whose principles again surpass simple chemical or mechanical ideas. In biology we have teleological unity at work, purposeful or functional principles that are not prominent at the chemical level. Thus a biological organism unifies its parts as integral members of itself and not as am aggregate of mere reactants.

To understand the why and how of Nature requires going behind the appearance of Nature.

 
To understand why and how material Nature exists are necessarily questions that require us to search for answers that lie beyond Nature (the World). "Why" questions delve into the purpose, and "how" questions delve into the means. The purpose and means by which the product or effect called material Nature results, cannot be answered at the level of material Nature itself.

 
The ancient sages and numerous modern philosophers have tried to answer these questions, yet modern "scientific" man remains woefully ignorant of such treasures. The purpose of the Harmony of Science and Religion project is to encourage proper education in these subjects in the student and academic communities so that this knowledge can be properly applied in fulfilling the life purpose of each individual, and correcting the imbalance in the impious lives of a misdirected civilization.