The Influence of Science upon Religious Conceptions

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta on 13^th April 1957

Continued from part 1, part 2 and part 3

Let us consider only the final step, for we have insufficient time at our disposal for an exposition of the intermediate steps.

Just as Adam falls from grace according to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, so too Yima falls according to the Iranian tradition. Adam’s fall is redeemed, successively, by Enoch, Elijah and Jesus, Yima’s fall by Zarathushtra. But in the Rig-vedic tradition about Yama, there is no fall. Yama, it is taught, chooses death, abandons his body and passes to the inner world, and is given lordship over the highest of the three heavens. Yama becomes the Master of Death, not to be confused with Mrityu or Mara, the death-dealer. Yama chooses death — that is, he frees himself from all bondage to the sense-life and worldly values. He grows to understand that the cycle of births and deaths is the stream of samsara in his own moment-to-moment consciousness, the stream which flows unbidden. He learns through discipline to master the unbidden flow of discursive thought, and to enter and abide in the profounder states of consciousness. At last he is able, in full self-possession, to die altogether to mortal consciousness, that is, whilst fully awake, to completely stop the flow of feeling and discursive thought. In other words, he completely transcends the awareness of existence in terms of entity, which is limitation and mortality. This is the meaning of Yama abandoning his body and passing to the inner world. This inner world is not the world of exalted feelings, nor of discursive thought however profound, nor of trances, nor of any of the visions and ecstasies of the saints. All these latter belong to the sphere of mortality, for in all of them one is aware in the mode of uprising-proceeding-dying. But when, fully awake, the flow of discursive thought is deliberately stopped, then there is no uprising-proceeding-dying in one’s consciousness. This is the full asamprajnata samadhi of the Hindu, the Eighth or Final Deliverance of the Buddha. It is the actual condition of Revelation. It is Superconsciousness, the transcendent awareness in terms of “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be”, all in simultaneity, in wholeness. And this, wherein all discursive thought is completely stilled, and all birth and death is overleaped, is the full experience and meaning of immortality. Time and space, the precondition for bodily being, pain and pleasure or stimulus-response, the touchstone of our psycho-physical life, and good and evil as we know them here, are all transcended, and you eat the fruit of the Tree of Life which stands in the self-same garden in which stands the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And that garden of Eden is your own bodily being.

This attainment of Superconsciousness is the meaning of Yama being granted lordship over the highest of the three heavens, and of his becoming the Master of Death.

When you realize Superconsciousness, you have made real the Silence, for all the noise of the mental chatter which is the expression of your mortal awareness of an entity universe is stilled. Now you are the fully Self-awakened One, the Enlightened One, the Anointed One. You have transformed your mortal awareness of a space-time world into the immortal Superconsciousness of eternal existence. Well may you triumphantly cry “O death, where is they sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” This entry into Superconsciousness is the meaning of “And Enoch walked with God; and Enoch was not, for God took him” before the death of the person called Enoch; the meaning of Elijah being transported to heaven in a chariot of fire; the meaning of “Be still and know that I am God.” The entry into Superconsciousness is the meaning of both the Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus; the meaning of his words “And now I am no more in the world … and I come to Thee”, and of his great affirmation “I and my Father are One”, which the Hindus before him expressed as “Pratyagatman and Paramatman are One.” This Superconsciousness is the meaning of that sentence in the Rig-veda, “We have drunk Soma and become immortal”; the meaning of those phrases in the Upanishads, realizing the Atman, knowing Brahman, becoming Brahman. It is the meaning of the words in the Aitareya Upanishad of the 8th century B . C . that “Vamadeva having said this ascended aloft and became immortal” — the Ascension is indeed a very ancient symbolical doctrine. This Superconsciousness was known to the Egyptian initiates; it was the supreme mystery which was kept secret in the Mystery cults of ancient civilizations; it was experienced four times by Plotinus and once by Porphyry. This Superconsciousness is the very heart of the Enlightenment of the Buddha; it is the true meaning of Nirvana here-now; it is the Kingdom of Heaven within you. This is the meaning of Eternal Life, the meaning of immortality, the meaning of God-realization or of union with God. It is the supreme religious experience.

In that Superconsciousness, all that our sublimest thought and our most profound intuitions have grasped are as nought. There is no God there, the God of our conceptions; there is no time, no space. You by virtue of having become the Absolute Good are united with the ceaseless creativeness of all existence with the as-it-is-in-itselfness of existence. You, the within-the-self Infinite, are one with the Infinite which is the Universal Transcendent.

Whosoever realizes Superconsciousness is the embodied Revelation, the fount and source of religion. The attainment of Superconsciousness, which is the experience of the Silence, the Void, the Plenum, the Infinite, the Absolute, is the source-experience from which have emerged the deep teachings embodied in words like Atman and Brahman, Godhead and God, Eternity and Immortality, the Kingdom of Heaven and Nirvana, soul and spirit, and all other similar words which are current specie on the counters of theology and philosophy.

Now we can see that the inspired utterances of the great teachers are the first translations of the experience of Superconsciousness from the infinite realm of the immortal into the limited sphere of the mortal. They are the attempt to infuse the transcendent reality of unitary, eternal being into the common reality of multitudinous, transient entities. As pointed out earlier, speech-thought is the means for re-presenting our awareness of existence in terms of name-form. Thus these religious truths which are formulated for our guidance to salvation are like crucified fragments of Divine Ideation. Nevertheless, these fragments which fall from the lips of the great teachers, our most precious heritage through all time, are glowing pointers of light brightening the path we should tread, if indeed we seek the realization of eternal life. But there are always those men — and they are legion — who wish to relate the heart of religion to the knowledge which is the fruit of searching for what is other than man’s spiritual fulfilment. Let us then clearly understand the nice distinction between the heart of religion on the one hand, and science, philosophy and theology on the other. Functioning within the sphere of sense-activity and discursive thought, restless, probing intellect poses many questions. These questions as well as their answers lie within the realm of speech-thought. All philosophy and science is a speech-thought product of the effort by man as he is, viz. a person capable of being conscious in the mode of mortality only, to comprehend what he wishes to comprehend. In contrast to this, the heart of religion is concerned with changing the comprehender. It is concerned with perfecting his character, so that he plumbs the depth of selflessness and stands on the height of sinlessness. It is concerned with enabling him to realize God-communion, union with Brahman. And so, the heart of religion enables a man to transform his mortal awareness of a space-time world into the immortal Superconsciousness of eternal existence.

Now, because there are those who wish to make and possess a philosophic system, a verbal system, answering questions about the heart of religion in a manner satisfying the discursive intellect, and formulated in the context of the limited and the particular, a theology comes into being. A theology is an exposition of religious conceptions; and we have already seen, earlier, in this talk, how scientific thought affects the formulation of a theology.

Modern science is presenting new world-views, and these views compel a reformation of religious conceptions. A new and suitable theological formulation will have to arise. Only forward steps can be taken, or else there is decay and death. Catholic orthodoxy, for example, cannot go back, as it is trying to do in some quarters, to Thomistic Aristotelianism in the face of modern science. All forward movement entails sacrifices — but remember that pure and holy sacrifices are gains, not losses, growth, not stultification. Let me mention only one of the sacrifices necessary today: it is the sacrifice of exclusiveness, and all that is implied in it.

Spiritual and religious tension today is greater than ever before in the world’s history because our progress has pushed us to the very frontiers in several ways. The globe is known, space is by-passed, time is foreshortened, matter is transformed into immaterial but harnessable energy, and strange new realms of the mind are being explored. Today is the fateful moment of opportunity. No new religious formulation which is merely a construct of the discursive mind will prove to be the spring waters of the spirit. That way will lie only frustration and suffering. Mankind fundamentally needs to be reminded that the heart of religion is concerned with the realization of Superconsciousness. This means the stopping of the flow of discursive thought; it means a ceasing to churn up the oceans of words and to produce philosophies and theologies which have forgotten the real meanings of immortality and eternal life. When proper account is taken of this truth, and when each one of us individually lives the good life and successfully reaches the end of the road, we ourselves shall realize here-now that ineffable felicity which is ‘the transcendental consummation of our human existence. And this is the most powerful, the most swift and the most practical way in which we can promote the greatest good of all mankind.

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