SPIRITUALITY AND SCIENCE The East has lived religiously -- that is one pole -- and because it has lived religiously it has not been able to produce science. The West has lived scientifically, and because of its science it has lost track of religion. Now for the first time, the East is no more East and the West is no more West. The earth is becoming one: the earth is becoming one. global village. This is the time when the reconciliation can be seen, can be understood. Man is entering into a new phase; a new consciousness is to dawn. For at least ten thousand years, as far as consciousness is concerned, nothing new has happened. There have been Buddhas and there have been Albert Einsteins, but we are still waiting for a Buddha who is also an Albert Einstein or an Albert Einstein who is also a Buddha. The day is coming closer and closer. Albert Einstein in his last days was very much interested in meditation, in religion. His last days were full of wonder. He said in his old age, I used to think when I was young that sooner or later all the mysteries of existence would be solved, and I worked hard. But now I can say that the more we know, the more existence turns out to be mysterious. The more we know, the less we know and the more we become aware of the vastness.... Science has not been able to demystify existence. Now this is recognized not by ordinary technicians but by geniuses, because they are the pioneers; they can see the dawn very close by, they are the prophets. Albert Einstein says that science has failed in demystifying existence, that on the contrary it has mystified things even more. For example, it was so easy in the old days, just a hundred years ago, for the scientist to say that all is matter. Now matter has disappeared; in neo-physics there is no entity called matter. The deeper the physicist went into the world of matter, the more matter was not to be found at all: it is pure energy. How to define energy now? Is it material? Energy cannot be material; energy is something totally different from matter. Matter is static, energy is dynamic; matter is a noun, energy is a verb. Matter is measurable. That is exactly the meaning of the word matter: it comes from measure, the root means measurable. Matter can be measured, thats why it is called matter. Energy is immeasurable, it cannot be called matter. And as the physicist has entered into the world of energy, he has become more and more puzzled; never before has he been so puzzled. Mystics have always been in awe before existence. The physicist is for the first time in awe, because he has for the first time touched something very vital otherwise he was just looking from the outside. A stone is just a stone from the outside. The physicist now knows that the stone is not just a stone: it contains universes. A single small pebble that you can hold in your hand contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can grow out of it, contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can be destroyed by it. It is not just a pebble any more and it is not solid any more. You are holding it in your hand and you know it is solid, but your knowing is no longer scientific. It only appears solid; it is liquid. And it looks so available, manipulatable; you can do things with it. But you dont know its mysteries which are not manipulatable, and the mysteries are really immense -- almost as immense as the mystery of God itself. The modern physicist is using the language of the mystics for the first time. Eddington said, The universe no longer looks like a thing but like a thought. This, from the mouth of a scientist, a Nobel prize-winner -- the universe looks like a thought and not like a thing? That means the universe is more consciousness than matter. And matter has been analyzed, our penetration has become deeper; we have come across atoms, electrons, neutrons -- and we are utterly mystified, at a loss even to express what we have come across. We dont have the language, the right language for it, because we have never known it. Now the right language has to be found in the words of the mystics: a Buddha will be helpful, a Lao Tzu will be helpful And scientists ARE looking into the words of the Buddhas to find the right language, because these are the people who have been talking about paradox, mystery. And now science is coming across paradoxes. The greatest paradox is that the electron behaves in such a mysterious way that the scientist has no language to express it. It behaves simultaneously as a particle and as a wave. This is impossible, inconceivable for the mind. Either something is a particle or it is a wave; the same thing cannot be both at the same time. You know Euclidean geometry: either something is a point or something is a line; one thing cannot be a point and a line together at the same time. A line means many points following each other in sequence; a single point cannot function like a line. But thats now electrons are functioning -- simultaneously as a point and as a line, as a particle and as a wave. What to make of it? How to say it? The scientist is dumb. Now he knows that the mystics, who have always been talking in paradoxes, who have been saying God is far away and very close by, must be saying something through their experience. The mystics who used to say that life and death are one, not two, for the first time are becoming relevant to the scientists mind. A new science is arising which says it is a science of uncertainty. NO more certainty! Certainty seems to be too gross. Mahavira, twenty-five centuries ago, used to make each of his statements with a perhaps. If you asked him, Is there a God? he would say, Perhaps. In those days it was not understood at all -- because how can you say, Perhaps? Either God is or is not. It seems so simple and so logical: If God is, God is; if he is not, he is not. What do you mean by perhaps? Now it can be understood. Mahavira was using the same language in religion that is being used by Albert Einstein in physics. Albert Einstein calls it the theory of relativity. Mahavira has called his philosophy exactly the same: SAPEKSHAWAD -- the theory of relativity. Nothing is certain, everything is flexible, fluid. The moment you have said something, it is no longer the same. Things dont exist, Mahavira says, but only events. Thats what modern science is saying, that there are no things in the world, but only events. And we cannot say anything absolutely, we cannot say, This is so. Whenever somebody says absolutely, This is so, he is behaving foolishly. In the past he was thought to be a man of knowledge; the more certain he was, the more it was thought that he knew. The uncertain person, the hesitating person, was thought to be ignorant. Thats why Mahavira could not influence the world very much; he came too early, he arrived before his time. Now is the time for him -- now he will be understood by the scientist, by the highest intelligence in the world. But he was talking to people, the ordinary masses, who could not understand his SYADAWAD -- his perhaps-ism. People wanted certain knowledge: Is there a God? And Mahavira would say, Perhaps. Yes -- in one way it can be said yes, and in another it can be said no. And both are right together, simultaneously. Now the time has come. Dont try to reconcile things -- that will be a false phenomenon. Just watch, just look deep into things as they are. They are already reconciled; there is no conflict in existence. All contraries are complementaries. OSHO...♡♡♡ Be Still and Know, # 1
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:54:30 +0000
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