The first principle of science is that any concept should be taken to be true only when the outcomes as predicted by it can actually be attained. Every one accepts a fact when it is demonstrated to be true in real. Therefore science is accepted by all. The science of spirituality has lagged behind in this and as a result has been subjected to disregard and disrespect.
Loss of Faith:
Most of those who attempt to follow spirituality can be heard saying that despite following religious practices for a long time nothing much has been achieved, all their time and effort has got wasted, that the whole exercise has been futile and the results have been disappointing.
People usually start with high expectations, but put in only superficial efforts to garner requisite resources to achieve what they want. So the results they obtain are nowhere close to their expectations. Faulty planning, or flawed implementation of the plans are the prominent reason that results may not be as desired. Falling off after climbing great heights risks grave injuries. Similar is the state when listening to great narratives the expectations are raised high, but nothing is actually attained.
Several people wish to realize God, and wish that all their lofty desires would be fulfilled in a moment by divine grace. For this they take up some religious practices as well. However when the desired results are not attained neither do they try to find faults within themselves, nor do they put in efforts to find mistakes in the methods they followed. Instead the basic principle itself is said to be wrong or deceitful. When there is none to explain or reply back it becomes even easier to blame anyone for anything. Thus ‘poor’ spirituality gets all the blame and ends up being mistaken as obscure imagination, whim of emotional excitation or mythological allegory. The scarcity of original ancient texts since the medieval times and misinterpretations by some selfish minds had added to such misconceptions in the later periods of civilization. So with passage of time intellectuals began to deny the whole concept of spirituality itself.
Waning of Spirituality in Modern Times:
In its infancy and early days of exuberance material science forcefully proclaimed that there is no such thing as God and the self-governing cycle of nature is the one that maintains all the operations. The existence of soul was denied similarly. It was claimed that a human being is nothing more than a tree that moves about. With time it withers and dies. There is no such thing as the world beyond. The capable can keep exploiting the incapables so that in this world the ugliness of incapability can be kept under check. When consciousness itself has no independent identity and only activities in the brain govern and control the limbs and organs, then the science of consciousness and the knowledge of spirituality can have no existence. In such a situation then, it is futile to expect any kind of good results from spirituality.
Whatever materialism proclaimed in its infirm, infantile voice, immature people accepted as the ultimate truth without verifying, studying or researching. A new mulla (Islamic priest) at a mosque in his excitement cries out louder than the rest; in a similar way the pseudo scientists or the so-called rational thinkers of that period began to support and spread atheism in a frenetic voice.
On the other side, the field of spirituality was filled with self-contended philosophers having only bookish knowledge. They never understood the necessity of inner realization, deeper thinking, logical arguments, facts, proofs and examples. They accepted the words of the scriptures as the whole truth. For them each word spoken by whomever they regarded a great man itself established its correctness. So they kept on presenting their thoughts through scriptures and other hearsay stories. They were not prepared to formulate a battle plan against atheism in accordance with the changing times when intellectualism and realism were steadily gaining acceptance. They did not understand that an argument needs to be contradicted with another argument, a fact with another fact, a proof with another proof, and an example with another example. These so-called spiritual men had no clue about principles of science since they never read science. The situation was like coming together of a deaf and a dumb. Science never tried to investigate the truth hidden in the depths of spirituality, and spirituality never felt the need or never found the time to understand the philosophy of science. The outcome was that spirituality had to accept defeat against science. The words of atheist philosophers like Nietzsche, Marx and Russell earned a lot of respect and fame and the second front of these philosophers waned out the light of spirituality and subdued its strength.
The third aspect has already been touched upon previously that people used to try to inveigle God into fulfilling their selfish desires but to no avail. They wanted to physically see God to divest Him of His powers. But the all-encompassing power that God is, has to be formless, how could it assume a form? How could it communicate and interact with a human like another? But hearsay narratives and blind faith kept encouraging them and they kept on hoping that once they would see God it would be easy to hold Him captive and get all their works done. Such a thing never worked out and their desires were never met. Attaining magical and supernatural powers and then milking the faith of masses by conjuring them was also a complicated task which could be carried out only by clever, magician like people. These days such conjurers alone have been elevated to the status of so-called God-men. Before their trickery and deceit is laid bare they wind up their shops and put them up elsewhere.
These three aforementioned reasons alone are mainly responsible for wavering people’s, and more specifically, intellectuals’ faith in spirituality. These compel them to stay away from spirituality. Only the limited segment of traditionalists, superstitious and God-fearing men now supports the entire structure of spirituality like an irony. Often one sees that spirituality has degenerated to all sorts of improper activities carried out by narrow-minded religious communities.
An analysis of the current state tends one to conclude that day-by-day the side of spirituality is growing weaker. Prudence would steadily part its ways with spirituality. No structure can stand upon the base of superstitions, it has to collapse tomorrow or the day after. How long can a wall of sand grains stand its grounds? For how long can magicians keep milking God-fearing men as their profession? The future looks completely bleak when one looks at this side alone.
Sight of Resurrection of Spiritual Glory:
However, a ray of hope has shone from the horizon in a new form. It has assured that truth has the strength of thousands of elephants. It can never die. Even if the entire world rises in opposition, it can stay up on its feet. Consciousness-force is not unreal. When by toying around with inanimate matter such repositories of capabilities and piles of conveniences can be created, then it cannot be that dealings with the consciousness-force would be completely useless. The potential of soul is not so inferior that it can be ignored or put to ridicule by hues and cries raised by some immature, excitable men.
The everlasting principles of spirituality had propagated in the early centuries based upon peoples’ faith in them. The whole setup of spirituality worked fine in an organized way then. But as the times changed the thinking class began to value intellectualism, practicality and material science more. So now it was necessary that the basis of faith be proven on the touchstone of reality. Times demanded that if spirituality had to stay alive and remain respected, then it had to go through the fire-test of practicality and had to prove its worth just like Sita, who had to prove her piety after returning from Lanka by entering and emerging unscathed from fire.
Several small steps were taken by some saintly savants in this direction from various platforms but no comprehensive programme ever emerged. Saint Vinoba also had said once that spirituality and science must join hands, but he also could not go into the nuances of how that would happen or who would do that. Several enlightened reformers all over the world have been expressing the need for the same, but their thought process also could not take the next step of formulating an outline for the task. Eminent siddha of Gayatri, distinguished scholar and writer and social reformer, Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya pioneered the renaissance of spirituality in new scientific light, in the most practical way with the purpose of mass-elevation.
The balancing power of the creator seems to have now created models to fulfil this demand of the times while holding its threads in His own very hands. Brahmavarchas Research Centre, Haridwar, founded by Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya, is the foremost institute, which is steadfastly working towards integration of modern and ancient sciences and spirituality. Its resolution is – firmly establishing the eternal principles of spirituality by harmonizing the accepted principles of material science with them.
Earlier it was thought that both these streams flow in different directions. One stream considers as true only what is perceivable, while the other what is beyond. Material science can express itself through senses or through instruments, but consciousness is subtle and expresses itself through thoughts, feelings and experiences. So is it ever possible to resolve this divergence? Such doubts and misgivings were proved to be baseless. New paths were created and new processes were formulated based on which
in the coming days the very atheists would first get converted into staunch believers. Material science is based upon facts, and when facts would support the tenets of spirituality then in its honesty science would have to accept all that it had denied in the past. True science is never obstinate and fixated. Whatever Newton thought and said is in contradiction with the accepted concepts of today, but stubbornness did not come in the way to create obstructions. Unlike communalism, it was never proclaimed from the platform of science that ‘we are right and others are wrong’. Prudence always accepts the principle of ‘whatever is true is ours’ and not ‘whatever is ours is the truth’. On this basis science has always progressed with an open-ended approach by correcting its past mistakes and in future too efforts would continue to search for the true reality further.
Brahmavarchas Research Centre has supervised many laboratory experiments and research projects to scientifically establish several principles of spirituality and to demonstrate their benefits in overall wellbeing of mankind in the present times. Most importantly, it has shown spirituality as an evolved science of psychological and intellectual elevation and chiselled refinement of personality. Outcome of this research is periodically published in Akhand Jyoti, Yug Shakti Gayatri magazines, a journal published by the Dev Sanskriti University, Haridwar. Some recent research results (parts of some PhD theses) are also published in reputed international science journals. A series of books is also being written. There is a strong desire to further expand and enhance the scope of research in the coming days, after the initial work is completed. There is also a plan to regularly publish a bulletin.
Acceptance of People:
As spirituality pertains to human being and not merely to some inert elements of Nature, in addition to the theoretical and laboratory research, there was also a need to prove elementary concepts by applying them on people. When a new medicine is invented, it does not get approval for general use just because good chemicals have been used in its manufacture. First it is tested upon small animals and then upon humans. Only when the benefits of the new medicine are well established that it gets approval. Any concept is accepted these days only when it can convince all, so the need to convince people cannot be bye-passed.
One major hurdle in conducting spiritual experiments on people is that it is very difficult to get such people who are willing to accept and thoroughly adopt the prime principles of spirituality. Spirituality stands for a complete redefinition of the way of living. Most only want quick fix remedies, while self-cleansing is a very challenging task. And then the requirement that all the achievements must be utilized not for selfish interests but for the betterment of the whole world with selflessness, is tougher to meet. General tendency among masses today is to make easy profit, like winning millions of rupees by investing just one rupee in lottery.
But in such circumstances how can the desire to buy off the invaluable at a cheap price be fulfilled? How can a sword made of wood conquer challenging battles? How can the mere child-play of religious rituals and superficial spiritual practices reap rich awards that match up with achievements of those who earned respect through arduous endeavours? A solution has been found to this problem as well. A huge group of millions of men and women has been entrusted the responsibility to demonstrate the practicality of spirituality. After all, a work is honoured and appreciated only when it is concluded with strong supporting evidences.
Source – What is Spirituality?
