Will Spirituality Be Taught in Schools in Future as Part of Science? (MTS-FINAL: Towards A Mathematical Theory of Spirituality Based on Advaita)

03-02-2006, 07:22 AM

Ref Pages 29-30 of http://sunyaprajna.com/Advaita/Advaita_Math.pdf

Spirituality has been more or less the exclusive province of religion since
civilization began. Religions- especially those founded on the worship of a
personality rather than on universal truths- are not overly comfortable with
the idea of scientific enquiry in the spiritual field. For its part, Science as
developed in the West has also generally behaved as though spirituality does not
even exist. That is, Science has tried its best to subsume the vertical axis of
our mathematical model under the horizontal axis, but without any success. The
present relationship between science and religion is one of wary tolerance for
each other, somewhat like the relation between the East and West during the
heydays of the Cold War. An uneasy truce between the two has been accomplished
by erecting an arbitrary “BerlinWall” separating the spiritual from the material
and the “religious” from the “secular”.

Advaita is a science that views the spiritual and material realms as one
unbroken continuum. It admits no division between the spiritual (aadhyaatmika)
and the material (aadhibhautika); its sweeping vision of the cosmos folds
everything into one reality. Tattwabodh and similar texts describe the orderly
process by which the gross, subtle, and causal project out of Brahman. Our
experience also confirms this holistic view. As embodied beings, we are endowed
with both spiritual faculties and material bodies. Yet we are not two separate
entities, but one integral whole.

If science is uncomfortable with traditional religions, it is far less so with
Advaita. There are a number of reasons for this. One is Advaita’s approach which
is close to that of science itself. Some of the basic tenets of Advaita are no
doubt axiomatic since they must be taken on faith and cannot be absolutely
proved. These axioms however do appeal to our intuitive sense of what Truth
ultimately must be: a) “satyam”- must “ring true” so that the mind naturally
accepts it without need for external proof; b) “shivam”- capable of bestowing
peace on the knower of the Truth; and c) “sundaram”- beautiful in its
simplicity. Using logic, Advaita then develops these axioms into a theory that
covers the full gamut of experience, spiritual and material. In this Advaita is
very much like any other branch of science that starts out with axioms. The
proof of a science lies in how well the statements it makes accord with
verifiable experience. Some of the assertions made by Advaita are verifiable in
our day-to-day lives, while those dealing with the realized state appear
reasonable and also stand attested by the reported experience of Yogis.

A second reason for science’s affinity with Advaita has to do with the
discoveries made in relativity theory and quantum mechanics in the last century.
These discoveries have thrust suddenly and irrevocably into fundamental science
what many think is a decidedly spiritual element. The world-view of the new
physics, it has been often noted, shares much in common with Advaitic and
Buddhist teachings.

Yet another window to spirituality has been opened with advances in
neurophysiology, concurrent with an increased acceptance by the public of yoga
and meditation. Study after study by researchers equipped with latest
neuro-iamging techniques is bearing out the views long held by Yogis. There is
growing consensus affirming the real benefits that meditation and yoga confer on
the mental and physical health of the practitioners, irrespective of their age,
religion or other background. These studies also provide evidence that the
benefits are not limited to the duration of the meditation, but carry over to
the rest of the daily activities- in other words, they transform life. This
probably marks the first time anything approaching a universal spiritual law has
been scientifically tested and validated.

Taken together, these theoretical and experimental developments augur well for
the greater involvement of science in spirituality in the future. It is just
possible that out of this work will grow a new discipline of science of
spirituality bearing, for aforementioned reasons, similarity to Advaita.

What role will Mathematics play in this future scenario? The work reported in
the last twelve postings has hopefully demonstrated that some of the concepts of
Advaita can be captured through mathematical models. Admittedly, what is
presented is only a first baby step, a sort of “proof-of-concept”. Yet, it
shows how the entire continuum “from the Knower of the Field to the Field” (i.e.
everything save the Brahman Itself) can be represented by a two dimensional
geometry and the state of spiritual evolution of a jeeva by a single variable.
It also yielded results in the spiritual realm with unexpected similarity to
results from the material world.

Is there any experimental validation of the time contraction result derived from
the model? I recently raised this question with Prof Sara Lazar, of Harvard
Medical School, where numerous studies on the effect of meditation have been
carried out. According to Dr.Lazar, there have been no quantitative studies to
measure the effect of meditation on time perception, but expects someone to do
that sooner or later. Regarding contraction in perceived time, Dr. Lazar
however noted in her e-mail that “this phenomenon is often mentioned by
practitioners (along with need for less sleep)”.

In pages 29-30, I have mentioned some of the ways that the model could be
developed further with future work. There is of course no guarantee if any of
this work will be fruitful, but we should leave that to the Lord.

Time was not too long ago when mystery and secrecy surrounded the practice of
medicine by the village “magic healers”. All that changed with the impressive
progress in life sciences over the last three centuries. Today there is a
uniform standard for the medical profession around the world, a standard built
on “evidence-based” medicine. Very few will deny that the changes to medicine
brought forth by science have been on the whole only beneficial to mankind. Now,
physical and mental health is important to a human being, but spiritual health
is even more so. Could, or should, there be a similar revolution using
evidence-based spirituality?

When science and mathematics do succeed in understanding and affirming
spirituality in their own terms, the wall separating science and religion would
have to come down, inaugurating a new era in human history. Spirituality would
become part of the science curriculum in schools. Religion as it is practiced
today would be changed for the better, stressing more on their underlying
universal spiritual laws and de-emphasizing their mere exterior ornamentations.
The effect would be to liberate spirituality from the superstitions surrounding
religions.

I end this series with these optimistic thoughts. I thank Ramachandran ji for
inviting me to present my ideas and sincerely appreciate the comments from
readers. Presenting my ideas in this forum has been tremendously useful to me
and I hope some of you also saw some value in reading it.

Hari Om! With Pranams to Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda ji,

Raju Chidambaram

03-02-2006, 10:37 AM

Dear Raju,
A great attempt to combine math and spirituality. Quite a lucid
statement. I am glad Rmachandranji asked you to write something about this
topic. Even for a non mathematician like me it seems to make sense but I
understand some more fine tuning may need to be done by you all. I am also
reading the sunyprajana website posting and I will call you with my questions.
Obviously I am operating with a deficit of lack of math principle but let me
plough thru and get back to you.
Wishing you all the Best inthis quest,
Your friend,
Siva Subramanian

aiyers@... wrote:
Ref Pages 29-30 of http://sunyaprajna.com/Advaita/Advaita_Math.pdf

Siva and Kalyani Subramanian

Yaa DEVI Sarva Bhootheshu Maathru Rupena Samstitha
Namas Tasyai Namas Tasyai Namas Tasyai Namo Namaha !

HARA OM HARA OM SADASIVA !
HARI OM HARI OM NARAYANA !!

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