170. The Quest of the Scientist for the Ultimate Reality

The latest conception of Science is the ultimate Reality is Energy. Indian yoga and philosophy had known that even before the Buddha. Man's highest instrument is mind. It is capable of illusions. It has one peculiar capacity of becoming a slave to its own creation. It is man and his mind that created that wonderful institution of Money whose power continues to grow with every passing year. It is a well-known fact that Man, the discoverer of Money, finds himself a slave of Money. So also, Mind can allow itself to be conditioned and further take that conditioning as Reality.

In the film "The Matrix" this theme is very well portrayed and the total extent to which such obsessions can grow is depicted very well. Science was born a few centuries ago to fight superstition that was enthroned in the society. Science grew in eminence and society conferred its recognition to Science while the society was still under the spell of superstition. Having accepted the recognition of the society, Science longed for greater recognition of the society rather than maintaining the pristine purity of Science. Thus, Science gave in, not to social influence but to that of superstition.

When one of our members spoke about the new inspiration Science needed to a former President of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, he wished those ideas to be presented to the members of the Academy. In addition, he declared, "These ideas are interesting, but unless some eminent scientist espouses these ideas, there is little chance of your being heard". It means Science no longer has its own authority of truth, but needs the external authority of social eminence which indirectly means the authority of superstition. We presented some of those ideas to the Academy at its conference in 1994. There was total interest, but no response.

Indians went two further steps beyond Energy as the ultimate Reality. We hoped that Indian scientists would be better able to appreciate our line of approach and placed those ideas before two eminent scientists. One never showed any interest while the other showed total interest but never pursued his interest. Let me explain in the next issue what we placed before the Academy and these scientists.