Science and spirituality

1. SCIENCE
&
SPIRITUALITY
BHAKTIVEDANTA INSTITUTE

2. Dr. T. D. Singh
Director, Bhaktivedanta Institute
President, Vedanta and Science Educational
Research Foundation
Scientific and
religious paths are like
two streams of the
creative human mind.
The scientific path
tries to explain the
nature of reality within
rationality, whereas
the religious or
spiritual path does so
within and beyond
rationality.

3. I think in this century,
science will be
admitted to the
spiritual aspects of
mankind, and vice
versa…
¾ Prof. Karl H. Pribram
Neuropsychologist,
Georgetown University, USA

4. “Science and technology alone
cannot solve the problems of the
new millennium. We need
additional guidelines for our
actions, for the selection of our
research projects and research
goals. These guidelines have to
do with ethics, with philosophy,
and with faith.”
¾ Prof. Richard R. Ernst
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Switzerland

5. Science and Eastern Thought
“Our science – Greek science, is
based on objectification…But I do
believe that this is precisely the
point where our present way of
thinking does need to be amended, perhaps
by a blood-transfusion from Eastern thought.”
¾ Erwin Schroedinger

6. “A great breakthrough in the
history of integration of science
and spirituality has been the
experimental verification of the
nonlocality of quantum objects.”
¾ Amit Goswami
Quantum Physicist,
University of Oregon, USA

7. What is Life?
What is Consciousness?

8. LIFE
Chemical and Biological Spiritual

Science Spirit

9. “In my search for the
secret of life, I ended
up with atoms and
electrons which have
no life at all. Somewhere along the
line, life has run out through my
fingers. So, in my old age I am now
retracing my steps.”
¾ A. Szent Gyorgi
1937 Nobel Laureate in Medicine

10. Although a biologist, I must
confess that I do not understand
how life came about… To me,
auto-replication of a macromolecule
does not yet represent life. Even a
viral particle is not a live organism, it
can only participate in life
processes…
¾ Werner Arber
Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine

11. “We can admittedly find nothing in
physics or chemistry that has even a
remote bearing on consciousness. Yet
all of us know that there is such a thing
as consciousness, simply because we
have it ourselves. Hence consciousness
must be part of nature, or more
generally, of reality, which means that,
quite apart from the laws of physics and
chemistry, as laid down in quantum
theory, we must also consider laws of
quite a different nature.”
¾ Niels Bohr

12. VEDANTIC PARADIGM
LIFE COMES FROM LIFE

13. Ontology of Life
•Life is transcendental
•Consciousness is the symptom of life

14. “RNA alone is not life…”
“…I think that life could be
beyond the assembly of
biomolecules.”
¾Werner Arber
Nobel Laureate in Physiology
and Medicine

15. Consciousness as
another Category of
Reality
Consciousness is a
distinct reality in
nature other than
particles and waves.
¾Dr. T. D. Singh

16. “It seems to me pretty plain that
there is a third thing in the
universe, to wit, consciousness,
which … I cannot see to be
matter or force, or any
conceivable modification of
either.”
¾ Thomas Huxley

17. “There are two kinds of
reality or existence; the
existence of my
consciousness and the
reality or existence of
everything else.”
¾ Eugene Wigner
Nobel Laureate in Physics

18. “...consciousness is a principle
that fundamentally transcends
not only physics and
chemistry but also the
mechanistic principles of
living beings.”
— Michael Polanyi

19. Science and Religion point to Reality
“In the history of science, ever since the
famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly
been claimed that scientific truth cannot
be reconciled with the religious
interpretation of the world. Although I am
now convinced that scientific truth is
unassailable in its own field, I have never found it
possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as
simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of
mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on.
Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been
compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two
regions of thought, for I have never been able to doubt
the reality of that to which they point.”
¾ Werner Heisenberg

20. FAITH AND SCIENCE
“Two major assumptions which are the basis

of scientific effort are first that the universe
is orderly, trustworthy, and it continues the
same way, and the second that the human
intellect can think through and figure out
most of this orderly behavior. Now both of those are
assumptions and articles of faith. We can’t prove that all
the laws of physics are going to be constant.”
¾ Charles H. Townes
Nobel Laureate in Physics

21. Science and Faith
“Anyone who has been seriously
engaged in scientific work of any
kind realizes that over t he entrance
to the gates of the temple of science
are written the words: Ye must have
faith. It is a quality which the scientist
cannot dispense with.”
-Max Planck

23. “The most beautiful and
most profound emotion
we can experience is in
the sensation of the
mystical. It is a shower of
all true science… That deeply emotional
conviction of the presence of a superior
reasoning power which is revealed in the
comprehensible universe forms my idea
of God.”
-Albert Einstein

24. “I believe that more thoroughly
science is studied, the further
does it take us from anything
comparable to atheism…If you
think strongly enough, you will be forced
by science to believe in God.”
-Lord Kelvin

25.  S c ienc e and God:
Inferential Evidenc e
“I saw in it [the atom] the
key to the deepest secrets of
nature,and it revealed to me
the greatness of creation
and Creator.”
—Max Born
 

26. “This most beautiful system
of the sun, planets, and
comets could only proceed
from the counsel and
dominion of an intelligent
and powerful Being…This
Being governs all things, not as the soul of
the world, but as Lord over all; and on
account of his dominion he is wont to be
called Lord, God.”
-Isaac Newton

27. Inspiration
Indication of a Divine Guide

28. Inspiration

“At the moment when I put my
foot on the step (of the bus) the
idea came to me, without
anything in my former thoughts
seeming to have paved the way for it, that
the transformations I had used …were
identical with those of non-Euclidean
geometry.”
-Henri Poincare

29. INSPIRATION
“Finally two days ago,
I succeeded …like a sudden
flash of lightening, the riddle
happened to be solved. I myself
cannot say what was the conducting thread
which connected what I previously knew
with what made my success possible.”
-Karl Gauss

30. “…it seems to me that
creativity in its finest form
contains something that we
cannot explain by the
normal algorithmic process
of discovery. It contains a
non-algorithmic process, a
non-algorithmic operation.”
¾ Prof. E. C. G. Sudarshan
Particle Physicist,
University of Texas, Austin, USA

31. Free Will and Science
“Many scientists will say, ‘I can’t
believe in religion, I can’t be
religious. On the other hand, if you
ask them, ‘Do you think you have
some free will,’ almost every
scientist instinctively thinks so. He has free
will. He can choose some things. He can
decide to go this way or that way. There is, in
fact, no room for free will in present scientific
laws and yet almost every scientist essentially
assumes he has it.”
¾ Charles H. Townes
Nobel Laureate in Physics

32. Matter from Life?
“You place matter before life and decide that
matter has existed for all eternity. How do
you know that the incessant progress of
science will not compel scientists… to
consider that life has existed during eternity
and not matter? You pass from matter to life
because your intelligence of today … cannot
conceive things otherwise. How do you know
that in ten thousand years one will not
consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life?”
- Louis Pasteur.

33. Bhagavad Gita on Life
The symptoms of life occur on the basis of
a spiritual, living entity. An infinity of
living entities exist, and they are known as
cit-kana or literally small conscious atoms.
When the cit-kana acquires a body, then the
changes of birth, growth, maintenance,
reproduction and death are manifested in
matter.

34. Life In the Center
“I began as a physicist drawing parallels
between physics and the Eastern
tradition. I now believe that physics
cannot be placed in the center of the
world view. The most appropriate
center is the theory of living systems.
You put life in the center, and you study life in its
multiple manifestations, and you make statements about
what life is, what mind is, and what consciousness is in
this context. Physics would be defined as the science of
nonliving systems.”
-Fritjof D. Capra,
Physicist and system theorist

35. Conception of Absolute Truth given by
Vedic Saints
• Bhagavan Feature (Personal)
• Paramatma Feature (Localized aspect)
•Brahma Jyoti (Impersonal aspect)

36. Vedanta Sutra: First aphorism
athato brahma Jijnasa
“Now, therefore one must inquire into the
nature of ‘Brahman’, the Absolute Truth or
God.”

37. Science and God
“When advancement of knowledge is applied
in the service of the Lord, the whole process
becomes absolute … Therefore, all the
great sages and devotees of the Lord
have recommended that the
subject matter of art, science,
philosophy, physics, chemistry, psychology and all other
branches of knowledge should be wholly and solely applied
in the service of the Lord…Scientific knowledge engaged in
the service of the Lord and all similar activities are all
factually hari-kirtana, or glorification of the Lord.”
¾ A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

38. “Everyone who is seriously involved in the
pursuit of science becomes convinced that a
spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe
– a spirit vastly superior to that of man.”
Albert Einstein

39. “The Universe has been brought for us by a
supremely good and orderly Creator.”
-Nicholas Copernicus

40. “The wisdom of God manifested in the
works of creation.”
-Robert Boyle