Through an inscrutable law, East and West offer two fields of activity, one mainly in the domain of spirit, and the
other largely in the domain of matter, for the glorious consummation of the ideal
of which all humanity has been moving. West has mostly devoted itself to
researches in the nature of material things while the East has experimented in
religion to learn the laws of the realm of spirit. Both ideals are necessary
for the progress of humanity.
Swami Vivekananda was most qualified
and competent to suggest ways and means of striking a balance between, and to
create a healthy synthesis of, the Western Science and Eastern Philosophy. He
was the product of Indian culture, and was born and brought up in a religious
atmosphere. As a young student he studied Western philosophy which shook his
innate faith in God and the supernatural. But even the Western philosophers did
not satisfy his unquenching thirst for truth. He did not want diagrams of truth
no matter how clever. He wanted The Truth. In this state of mind, as a skeptic
and agnostic and yet a true seeker of truth he met Sri Ramakrishna- who
represented the traditional India with its spiritual perspective, its
asceticism and realization, the India of Upanishads. Vivekananda, then
Narendra, came to him with all the doubts and skepticism of modern age,
unwilling to accept even the highest truths of religion without verification,
yet with a zeal for truth burning within. The result of the contact was the
birth of a new philosophy, new religious outlook on life, in which India’s
ancient spiritual perspective was heightened, widened and strengthened to
include modern learning. The intense activity of the West was to be combined
with the deep meditation of the East. Asceticism and retirement were to be
supplemented by work and service to others. From the merging of the two current
a new religion, the faith of glorious tomorrow was born in which nothing was
denied, but all was fulfillment.
Religion is not
Unscientific:
In an attempt to reconcile Western
Science and Eastern Philosophy, specially the Vedanta, Vivekananda first of all
tried to show that the religious way of looking at the universe was not
unscientific. He showed that the two principles fundamental to all scientific
enquiry are satisfied by Advaita Vedanta.
They are: (i) The particular is explained by general, the general by the more
general, till the one universal is reached. (ii) Explanation of a thing must
come from inside the thing not from outside. An extension of this principle is
the law of evolution, that the effect is nothing but the cause in another form,
that all potentialities of the effect are present in the cause, that the whole
creation is an evolution and not creation.
The Swami showed that the Brahman of Vedanta fulfills the above mentioned two
principles of knowledge, in as much as, it is the last generalization and out
of which everything else arise. It is the highest and the ultimate cause, as
well as the lowest and the most distant of effects in a series of evolution.
The third principle or conclusion of
science which tallies with the conclusion of Vedanta is the essential unity of things. Vivekananda showed, that
we are all one, mentally, spiritually and physically,- a conclusion to which
the modern sub-atomic science is arriving at, after almost a century. The whole
universe is an ocean of matter, of which we are like whirlpools. The matter
that is in my body may have been in you a few years ago, or in the sun or in a
planet, in continuous state of flux. So with thoughts. Our thoughts enter each
other’s mind, we all know this. Coming to a still further generalization, the
essence of matter and thought is their potentiality in spirit, which too must
be one. The proud man is told that he is the same as the worm. The grand
teaching of oneness of things is a great lesson to learn because we are very
glad to be made one with higher beings but nobody wants to be made one with the
lower ones. Swami Vivekananda also showed that like any science, religion also
had its own methods, and procedure, its own premises and its own conclusion
based on reason and experience. The science of Yoga was based on observable
experience which could be verified by anyone. In Yoga, the object of observation
was the mind itself, and the instrument of observation too was the
concentrated, purified and trained mind. But nonetheless, it was a documented
science with details fully worked out. Religious enquiry, following the
internal path, using instruments and methods appropriate to its own field,
testing its findings by reason, and verifying its reasoning by experience, was
a science in its own right.
Criticism of
Material Science:
Swami Vivekananda confronted the
problem on the other front too. He was critical of the extravagant claims put
forth by science on man’s allegiance. If religion has its superstitions, science too has its superstitions. As soon as
a great scientist’s name like Darwin or Huxley is quoted, people accept the
statement blindly. He critically examined the mechanical and evolutionary
theories and found them inadequate and unsatisfactory. He was of the firm
opinion that no system or philosophy based purely on materialistic or
utilitarian ideas can satisfy or explain the whole of human existence of can
provide answer to all the problems of human existence. The Swami shows that the
theory of evolution was incomplete, because the very evolution presupposes an
involution. Something cannot come out of nothing. We can get from a machine only
that much amount of energy which we put into it. If a man is an evolution of
mollusc, the perfect man, the Buddha man, the Christ man must be involved in
the mollusc. Secondly our struggle for higher life shows that we have been
degraded from higher states. Another point of controversy which Vivekananda
took up, was whether the aggregate of materials we call body is the cause of
the manifestation of force we call thought? Taking the position that thought is
simply the outcome of adjustment of the parts of the machine called body leaves
the question unanswered. What makes the body? What force combines the molecules
into the body form? To say that the force called soul is the outcome of body is
to put the cart before the horse. The cause is always finer than the effect.
That theory must be accepted which explains most facts, if not all, without
contradicting most of the theories already existing. It is more logical to say
that the force which takes up the matter and forms the body is the same which
manifests through the body.
Neither can force evolve out of
matter. Rather it is possible to demonstrate that what we call matter does not
exist at all. It is only a certain state of force. Solidity, hardness, or any
other state of matter can be proved to be the result of motion. Increased
vortex motion imparted to fluids gives them the force of solids. A mass of air
in vortex motion as in a tornado becomes solid-like and by its impact breaks or
cuts through solids. A spider’s web if it could be moved at almost infinite
velocity could be as strong as an iron chain and would cut through an oak tree.
In U.S.A. Swami Vivekananda had
occasion to discuss metaphysical question the so-called free thinkers,
materialists, agnostics, atheists, rationalists, etc. Defeating them on their
own ground he showed that the very idea of mater was a metaphysical conception,
and that it was their much despised metaphysics upon which ultimately rested
the very basis of their materialism, and that their innumerable laws so much
talked about had no outside existence apart from the human mind. He pointed out
that their materialistic knowledge proved itself incorrect not by comparison
with knowledge which is true but by the very law upon which it depends for its
basis, that pure reasoning could not help admitting its own limitations and
pointed to something beyond reason, that rationalism when carried to its last
consequence must ultimately land us at something which is above matter, above
force, above senses, and above thought. Empirical science cannot enable one to
transcend the realm of intellect and senses and realize the eternal reality
which is the foundation and cause of all phenomena. What man knows of the world
is the result of the interaction between physical objects and his senses, after
application of categories of understanding like time and space. Hence man can
never truly know the nature of the external world apart from categories of time
and space. The sense perceptions and the ideas which man forms from them are
not free from a large quota of subjectivity. Western savants having failed to
establish the existence of self a part from objective consciousness have failed
to come to a final conclusion regarding the ultimate reality. Western science
alone could not answer the most vital questions of life and being.
Science, Religion
and Human Welfare:
A third way in which Swami Vivekananda
dealt with the question of science and religion was to show their mutual
complementary nature. Both science and religion were attempts to seek the
explanation of things through an exploration of the nature of the things
themselves. The former deals, by definition, with the nature of the material
universe, so called; the latter deals with the subtle realm of the mind in
which the universe is perceived and known, and explores far deeper into the
“nature of things”, than does science. In this sense, religion, as the Swami
saw it, was an extension of science. Just as matter and mind could be said to
form a continuum, so the disciplines of science and religion could be said to
form a continuum of man’s exploration of the same reality. Swamiji’s effort was
to show that the external world and the internal world were not separate, that
the gross melts into the find, physics into metaphysics in every department of
knowledge.
Vivekananda was aware of the utility
and value of science for the much needed material development of India, which
was one of his most important concerns. As far back as in 1888, he was aware of
the need for pure drinking water for the Indian masses. In the West he eagerly
availed of every opportunity to visit technical institutes and wanted to raise
funds to start similar institutions in India
It must be remembered that the
majority of masses are never truly religious or seekers of truth. They are all
materialists, seeking physical enjoyment and material prosperity. (artha and kama), even in a country like India
In the words of Sister Nivedita: “If
the may and the one be indeed the same reality, then it is not all modes of
worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes
of creation, which are paths of realization. No distinction henceforth between
sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is
itself religion. To have and hold is as stern a trust as to quit and to avoid.
To Swami Vivekananda the workshop, the study, the farmyard, the filed are as
true and fit scenes for the meeting to God with man, as the cell of the monk or
the door of the temple. To him there is no difference between service of men
and worship of God, between manliness and faith, between true righteousness and
spirituality.” Art, science and religion”, Swamiji said once, “are but three
different ways of expressing single truth”.
To summarize, Swami Vivekananda tried
to solve the problem of the conflict between religion and science by showing
that religion was as scientific as any other science, that modern material
science and materialistic way of life was not without imperfections, and that
the two can be combined for the greater good of the humanity. He even proposed
a practical scheme by which the two can be happily combined in the day to day
life.
