Our scientific understanding has undermined many conventional approaches to spirituality at the very time we most need to strengthen these capacities. The source of the difficulty may hold the key to the solution. Science is widely accepted because it works. It looks at the world as it is searching for the simplest possible description. Discovery of simple descriptive laws has led to enormous power to control the phenomena the laws describe feeding our technical prowess. It was only possible to do this by divorcing science from feeling and values so one could see what is and not what one wants to see.

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Most traditional religions assert that God is the ultimate Truth, while science, without admitting the existence of any personal God, claims that its motive force is the quest for Truth. Science and religion seldom see eye-to-eye; this is partly because science has played a big role in enhancing our material comforts.

Since religion has always regarded materialistic conquests and gains as being secondary and sometimes even detrimental to our spiritual progress, the spiritually-minded have come to look upon science as a sphere of activity that denies the existence of the Divine.

(See also: Spirituality and Science, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

spiritual science

The evolution of high consciousness as it relates to the human being, to the Universe, and all creation, as taught by the ageless wisdom, esoteric studies, and theosophy

(See also: Spiritual science, Body Mind and Soul)

Do human brains play any role in spiritual contemplation? Is the spiritual experience real? And, if so, is the spiritual urge programmed into the brain's neural structure? Is the complex relationship between spirituality and the brain understandable?

Neurotheology

Scientific studies have explored the genetic basis of our systems of belief, giving rise to a new discipline - Neurotheology

(See also: Spirituality and Science, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Civilisation is defined by and founded upon the ideals and shared beliefs that weld society together. What uniquely defines the human experience is the transcendent component of life.

It unlocks the creative capacities within our consciousness and safeguards human dignity. Pragmatic approaches to problem solving must play a central role in development initiatives. But equally, tapping the spiritual roots of human motivation provides the essential impulse that ensures genuine social advancement. When spiritual principles are fully integrated into community development activities, the ideas, insights and practical measures that emerge are more likely to promote self-reliance and preserve human honour.

(See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

God initiated the universe, He created it. But we change the world too. Therefore, we have a responsibility; we have to ensure that we change it for the better. Take cloning, for instance. We humans are co-creators. How we go about cloning depends on whether we're doing it for the common good. It raises many complex and difficult questions. We are changing all the time. So instead of imposing a total ban on creative research, it is better to regulate it carefully.

(See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Is religion really opposed to science? The answer, perhaps, lies in how one perceives the relationship between the two. According to an American theology professor, J F Haught, there are four different ways of describing this relationship.

The first way is the belief that science and religion are fundamentally opposed to each other. Many scientific thinkers believe that religion can never be reconciled with science because it cannot prove its ideas in a straightforward way, whereas science can.

(See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Knowledge is divided between phenomenology, science of the changeable and ontology, science of the unchangeable. Ontology is the realm of being and phenomenology that of becoming.

To explain it to the laity, Christianity uses the word 'Father' for ontology and 'Son' for phenomenology. The Holy Spirit is individualised consciousness that mediates the two.

(See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Since the beginning, human beings have sought answers to spiritual questions, motivated by a basic urge to understand the meaning of life. Our search for answers has led us to believe in a divine being.

This belief in divine power dominated world thought until about 500 years ago when scientific discoveries and innovations began to shake our faith in God. But science also proved to be a false god, leaving many in despair,

(See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Carried away by the triumphs of science, many people repudiate God's existence. They dispute anything which is not empirically verifiable. But as former president S Radhakrishnan said: "Science looks at the periphery, at the outside of things, the variety and multiplicity of the universe. The centre of being from which all these things come, from which they arise - that must be felt by solitary meditation."

(See also: Science and Religion, , Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

A little girl was to undergo an operation. The surgeon said to her: "Before we can make you well, we must put you to sleep for a little while." The little girl looked up and smiled: "Oh, if you are going to put me to sleep, I must say my prayers first".

She knelt down beside the table and prayed: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. " The surgeon said afterwards that he prayed that night for the first time in 30 years. Prayer doesn't change things. It changes people, and they change things. So, don't pray for lighter burdens; pray for stronger backs.

(See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Both science and spirituality need to work together to understand total reality. In the Gita, Krishna says: ''It is the knowledge of matter with its evolutes and the spirit which I consider as wisdom’’ (13.2). Bertrand Russell wrote: ''Unless man increases in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will only be increase of sorrow.’’

Science is limited to the outer, physical world of objects. 'Veda’ deals with knowledge of both the outer (physical) and inner (psycho-spiritual) worlds. Vedas have a larger connotation as they stand for eternal truths.

(See also: Science and spirituality, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Science and Spirituality: Symbiosis Between Science & Spirit

Some years ago, I called upon the great scientist Prof S Chandrasekhar in Chicago and asked him how seers of the Vedas and Upanishads had two astounding insights that have emerged in modern science only recently.

The first is the concept of anantakoti brahmanda , endless universes. The second is the concept of vast aeons of time through which creation passes, much like the ancient belief that a single day of Brahma is 4.32 million human years long, so that his one year corresponds roughly to the age of planet earth. When I suggested that perhaps this knowledge came to seers in enhanced states of consciousness, Prof Chandrasekhar seemed to agree.

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Recent scientific discoveries seem to validate the concept of Brahman . Physicists and cosmologists are close to proving that there is one source behind the physical universe, and they call this source the unified field. In a profound sense, Brahman , the Vedantic concept and the unified field of physics appear to be synonymous.

All the physical objects and phenomena around us are not illusory or maya, but are quite real. However, what we see is only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath it is the interplay of an abstract substance called energy, which in turn is controlled by something even more abstract:

(See also: Science and Spirituality, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Science and Spirituality: See the World in a Grain of Salt

Revelation of this excellence in God's creation has been the constant endeavour of science right from the days of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein to the present day.

Realising God's excellence in nature only brought these scientists closer to God - some of them even expressed a feeling of deep religiosity. Einstein said: "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".

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Science and Spirituality: New Physics Points To Cosmic Spirit

'God is dead' proclaimed a cover story in Time magazine in the 1960s, and held science responsible for it. Case closed? Far from it. By the 1990s, people were talking about things like 'can spirituality promote health?' The pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. Ironically enough, it is the same science that once killed off the notion of God that is now strengthening humankind's belief in a 'supreme power'. Latest revelations in cosmology and quantum physics are fostering this paradigm shift.

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