Religion/Science/Aesthetics
*You have to be scientific. To approach the world, the objective world,
rightly, the only way is science. If the Bible
says that the earth is not round
but flat, dont believe in it -- be scientific. The earth is round and not flat.
The
Bible has no right to say anything about something objective. The Bible
is a religious book; it has its own dimension.
Dont confuse these
dimensions.
Because of this confusion there has arisen a
great conflict between science
and religion.
There is no need at all. Science has its own
realm, its own territory. First
the priests started interfering with science; now, the whole story is again
being
repeated in the opposite order. Now scientists are trying to interfere
in the world of religion.
Dont ask a scientist whether God exists or not
-- that is none of his
business. What does he know about God? That is not his dimension. And
whatsoever he says about
God is stupid; whatsoever he says is going to be
wrong.
It is like asking a great doctor about poetry
-- he may be a great doctor, a
great physician, but asking him about poetry just because he is a great
physician is
foolish. Or asking a great poet about your illness because he is
a great poet - you can see the stupidity of it. You will
not go to a great
poet to be diagnosed just because he is a great poet. You will go to a
doctor -- he may not be a
poet at all.
The scientist has no right to say anything about
the interiority of humanity
-- that is not his world. But now he is interfering. He is doing the same
wrong that the
priests have been doing for centuries.
Galileo was called by the pope, forced in his
old age to apologize because
he had said that it is not the sun that goes round the earth, but the earth
that goes
round the sun. Now, it is against the Bible. The priests were very
much annoyed: "How can you deny the Bible? Who are
you?" In his old age
-- he was seventy, ill, bed-ridden -- he was forced to go to the court, he
was forced to kneel
down before the pope, and he was asked to apologize.
He must have been a man of humor, he must have
had a great sense of
humor. He said, "Yes, sir, I apologize. I declare that the Bible is right, that
the earth does
not go round the sun but the sun goes round the earth. Are
you satisfied, sir?"
And they were all happy. They said, "We are satisfied."
And then Galileo laughed. He said, "But whatsoever
I say, it makes no
difference -- the earth goes round the sun. My statements, what do they
mean? What can they do?
What can I do? My saying it wont help -- the
earth wont listen. But I apologize, I am wrong and the Bible is right. But
remember well: the earth goes round the sun -- it has no obligation to fulfill
my desire. I would like it to go according
to the Bible and according to you,
but I am helpless, utterly helpless."
The Bible has many unscientific statements, the
Vedas have many
unscientific statements. All old scriptures have many unscientific
statements, for a certain reason:
because in those days there was no
science as a separate phenomenon. The religious scripture was the only
scripture
available. So it used to collect everything; whatever knowledge
was available was collected in the scripture. It contains
art, it contains
mathematics, it contains geography, it contains history, it contains science
-- it contains everything
that was available. And the knowledge was so
small that it could be contained in a single scripture.
But now, centuries have passed, man has grown,
has come of age. Now,
science has its own world. We should drop all that is scientific from the
religious scriptures
-- they have nothing to do with it. Neither does science
have anything to do with religious scriptures or the religious
dimension. But
this is how stupid minds go on quarreling.
Be scientific -- as far as the world is concerned,
be
scientific. As far as your inner reality is concerned, be religious. And there is
a world between the two, the
world of in-between, the twilight world,
where the objective and the subjective meet. That is the world of
aesthetics.
About that, be an artist, be a poet, be a musician.
All these dimensions fulfilled and you will become
spiritual; all these
dimensions enriched will make you the fourth man, the spiritual man,
-- integrated, whole. Nothing
has to be bypassed. Everything has to be lived,
loved, experienced.Everything has to be absorbed,
so that you become
as rich as it is possible to become.
**When I use the word "aesthetics" I mean a quality
in you. It has nothing to
do with objects -- paintings,music, poetry -- it has something to do with a
quality in your
being, a sensitivity, a love for beauty, a sensitivity for the
texture and taste of things, for the eternal dance that
goes on all around,
an awareness of it, a silence to hear this cuckoo calling from the
distance. *Aesthetics is just
an artistic approach towards life, a poetic vision.
Seeing colors so totally that each tree becomes a painting, that each
cloud
brings the presence of God, that colors are more colorful, that you dont go on
ignoring the radiance of things,
that you remain alert, aware, loving, that
you remain receptive, welcoming, open. Thats what I mean by the
aesthetic
attitude, the aesthetic approach.
Music has to be in your heart, your very being
has to be musical, it has to
become a harmony. A man can exist as a chaos or as a cosmos. Music is
the way from chaos
to cosmos. A man can exist as a disorder, a discord,
just noise, a market place, or a man can exist as a temple, a sacred
silence, where celestial music is heard on its own, uncreated music is heard
on its own.
The Zen people call it the sound of one hand
clapping.
In India, for centuries mystics have been talking
about anahat nad -- the
unstruck sound. It is there in your very being; you need not go anywhere
to listen to it.
It is the ancientmost music, and the latest too. It is both the
oldest and the newest. And it is the music of your own
being, the hum of
your own existence. And if you cant hear it, you are deaf, you cannot
bypass the aesthetic layer
of your being: you have to go through it.
Otherwise you will always remain impoverished; something will be missing,
lopsided,something
of immense value. Your enlightenment will never be total.
A part
of your being will remain unenlightened; a corner
of your soul will remain
dark -- and that corner will remain heavy on you. One has to become
totally enlightened.
Nothing should be bypassed, no shortcuts are to be
invented. One has to move very naturally through all the layers, because
all
those layers are opportunities to grow.
The more you bring to the conscious, the more
you are freed -- it is very
unburdening.
And there is no way, to bypass it. Museums you
can bypass, art
galleries you can bypass -- in fact, you should bypass them. You need not
be worried about art and
art criticism -- forget all about it. But you have to
become an artist of life itself.
+++
"The most beautiful thing
we can experience is the
mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to
whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to
wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead."
--- Albert Einstein
"There are two ways to live your life,
One
is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle."
---Albert Einstein
To believe in something not yet
proved and
to underwrite it with
our lives; it is the only way we
can leave the future open. Man,
surrounded by facts, permitting
himself no surprise, no intuitive
flash, no great hypothesis, no
risk, is in a locked cell. Ignorance
cannot
seal the mind and
imagination more securely.
---Lillian Smith
Religion is about values; science
about
the factual state of the world.
They are different enterprises, and
there's no more reason for them to
be at loggerheads
than music and
ditchdigging.
---Stephen Jay Gould
