Satsang With Swami Chinmayananda-Science And Scriptures

By Staff

Monday, February 16, 2009, 10:07

Swami Chinmayananda, Science And Scriptures

Q: Swamiji, you once said that what modern thinkers talk to us in the living language of science is the same truth as what the pundits say in the dead language of scriptures. Can you explain what you meant, please?

A : In our ignorance of our incapacity to understand the great seers when they discuss the scriptural contents - lies the secret of our despair with religion.

As an example. we could conveniently take the oft-repeated idea in Vedanta that the names and forms constituting the world of our perceptions are nothing in fact but pure energy - Chaitanya as they called it. That the names and forms are superimpositions upon the homogeneous all-pervading wisdom-light (Chaitanya). is almost explained to us in the modem language of the physicists when they declare that matter is nothing but energy-in-motion. The exact parallel is seen again in the Tantric school of belief where they explain that in the absolute reality there happened a spandan or a disturbance when the gross forms of plurality emerged out of it.

Thus. the modem physicist with his discovery of the electrons and protons seems to be talking almost of the same truth as the compilers of Yoga had done in the ancient times.

Even though there are thus many parallels between the ancient declarations and the modem experimented truths. we as students of pure reasoning cannot at all accept or digest the scriptural contents when explained to us by the pundits in their ancient terminologies. In recent times when we look back into the history of growth and development of Vedanta. we find that the only ones that could give some fillip to our culture were those who had their education in the modem sense of the term. Thus Vivekananda and Ramtirtha. both university men could bring about a great enthusiasm for and renaissance in Vedanta. because they could go back to the world. after their personal experiments with these truths to explain them to their generation. The contents of the scriptures are always welcome when explained or restated in a clear language understandable to the people.