We often use the word spirituality to mean some uncommon or mystic set of notions or practices. Even people who do not believe in the concept of spirit or soul use the term to mean such things. Many people talk about ‘spiritual experiences’. Most modern Gurus take subjective experience as the proof of existence of spirituality that is beyond science.
On the other hand, self-claimed rationalists totally rubbish spiritual experiences dubbing them to be just some unexplained ‘brain phenomena’ and nothing more. According to them, everything needs to be explained scientifically in an objective manner.
No matter how much one argues about the reality of subjective experiences, there is always a counter argument that shoots it down. Or at least, a rationalist may postpone the proof by saying that ‘it will be known as we understand more about our brain and it is just a matter of time’.
Is there something that clinches the evidence in favor spirituality claims which science or logic cannot deny? Such an evidence obviously points to the limitation of science and a need for broadening its horizons.
What is science by the way?
It is a methodology which helps us in moving forward in our understanding of things in a firm footed manner, without getting influenced by our individual biases. That is why science lays more emphasis on precision, logic, objectivity, empirical evidence, repeatability, and so on. More than anything else, science lays stress on openness. As soon as some ideas are proven wrong, science has no qualms about discarding that idea. All these are meant to safeguard us from erroneous conclusions and consequences of such conclusions.
The fundamental belief of science is that anything that exists can be perceived through our senses, either directly or indirectly. Even logic and evidence, ultimately boil down to sense perception. Obviously, if some ‘thing’ cannot be perceived through the senses, then it does not exist.
Over a period of time, this fundamental belief of science itself has been under question, not just by spiritualists but also by some scientists themselves.
But the question is – ‘is there something that can be proven to exist, but not perceptible in any way science recognizes?”. If some such thing does exist, then we will be able to transcend the limitations of science.
What is that ‘thing’?
One such thing is the idea of re-birth. It is a concept easily accepted by most eastern philosophies irrespective of their belief in soul or not. If the phenomenon of re-birth is empirically proven, that may not necessarily mean that some such thing called ‘spirit’ exists, but surely that ‘things’ that science does not accept today, can exist. So, there is a world beyond science.
Why is that so?
When someone dies, his body would disintegrate after sometime and nothing of him remains, He is gone forever. Since our current science views mind as nothing but ‘brain in action’, even the mind of the person also perishes leaving no trace behind.
But re-birth idea claims that the person who is dead continues in another body which may be totally unconnected to the previous body. If re-birth is proven beyond doubt, then it means that there is some ‘thing’ that our senses cannot perceive, some ‘thing’ that is beyond the scope of our current science. That would either imply a need to broaden the scope of science, or accept it to be inadequate means to go forward in domains that are beyond sense perception.
Many Gurus would confidently tell you that re-birth is definitely a fact. Some of them base their belief on religious scriptures, and some others on ‘past life regression studies’. In past life regression studies, one is hypnotically made to go back in time, even beyond his birth. That means into previous births. Apparently, these procedures can take back a person into several past births in a gradual fashion.
But many scientists don’t accept such claims. For one, most people in the eastern countries do believe in the concept of re-birth, and it is possible that the so-called regression into past lives may just be a travel in one’s own subconscious mind and it could be nothing more than a dream. Such things are hard to prove. Especially when money minded spiritual Gurus are involved, there is scope for fakery as well.
But surprisingly, well known scientists such as Dr. Stevenson of University of Virginia, have their own evidence to suggest that re-birth is a possibility. Their evidence is not based on hypnotic regressions but on scrutiny of claims of many cases where people are supposed to have memories of their past lives. Dr. Stevenson and his co-researchers have recorded thousands of such cases not just in countries where re-birth is a common belief, but also in countries where re-birth is either ridiculed or even considered to be against common religious faith.
But then, even scientists can be biased, they can go wrong. Their research could be motivated. Or at least that they were misled by motivated people who fed them with wrong information.
What will be interesting is that even if just one of the cases among the thousands of cases these scientists have supposed to have studied turns out to be true, that is a good enough case to clinch an evidence for spirituality. A case to prove that there exist domains beyond science. A case to stress the need to revamp our scientific methodologies.
Will we be fortunate enough to get such an evidence in our lifetimes?
A series discussing questions and answers on Yoga/Philosophy. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2020-21
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