The Science of Life

Vishnu Ratna

What is man? What makes man different from rest of the living beings on this planet? Is it biology? Is it Psychology? In the entire evolution of life on this planet, man is the culmination of natures mechanical process of collective biological evolution. Evolution takes place at two levels, biological (physical) and psychic (mental).Evolution at the physical level is collective, biological. Charles Darwin was the first to propound theory of evolution at the physical level by means of natural selection. Darwins theory concerns biological evolution, at the physical or bodily level. It does not concern evolution at the level of the psyche or consciousness. Darwin propounded survival of species at the biological level through process of adaptation. However, later discoveries proved that natural selection is not the only cause of adaptation and evolution; there are other non-adaptive causes such as mutation and genetic shifts. Darwin had proposed that those who survive in the conflict are the only fittest ones. But, it is now accepted that both conflict and cooperation gives birth to co-evolution at the biological level. The evolution at the psyche level is the subject matter of another field known as Evolutionary Psychology. Evolutionary psychology deals with evolution of memory, perception, language, cognition, thinking, and feeling. Sensation, perception and conception are part of evolutionary growth in the psyche. From Amoeba to Man, the evolution is from sensation to conception at the psyche level. Man has become conscious. Man is more conscious than the preceding life forms. There are several attributes of man, which is not part of the animal world. For example, man is the only animal who rapes. No animal ever rapes except man. Man is the only rapist animal in the world. Aristotle defined man as a rational being. However, animals can also reason in their own way, the difference is only of degree. Another mysterious attribute of man is laughter. No animal laughs, no trees laugh-only man laughs. Laughter is the most mysterious thing in man. It is the super most glory of man. Man can be defined as the only laughing and weeping animal. Anger exists all over. Sex exists all over. It is not so mysterious. If we want to understand sex, we can understand animal sex. All that is applicable to animal sex will be applicable to man. Anger, violence, aggression, possessiveness, jealousy everything exists in animals more purely than human beings. But everything is confused in man. That is why behaviourists 8/13, Second Floor, Arya Nagar, Kanpur 208 002 Ph: (0512) 2551251-52; 9415101244 1

study rats to study mans behaviour. But, rats cannot laugh, they cannot weep. Laughter and weeping exists only in man. If we have to study laughter and weeping, we have to study humanity; there is no other way it can be studied. This is the distinctive quality of human mind. All animals are serious, and all serious people are animals. Similarly, boredom and restlessness is another distinctive quality of man. Only man feels bored because only man is conscious. The more sensitive we are the more alert, the more bored we feel, and a mediocre mind does not feel bored. Consciousness is the cause of sensitivity, emotion, feelings. Further, no animal can commit suicide. It is only mans prerogative to commit suicide. Anguish, anxiety, moods, boredom, laughter, sadness etc make man different from other life forms. These are human qualities. Man suffers because of this dilemma. To be or not to be remains an eternal question for man. This dilemma of man is beautifully described in Srimad Bhagvat Gita. Man is a duality between past and future. The past means animal and the future means divine. Between the two, man is torn apart. Science deals with the animal in man, the dead past. Charles Darwin and others look at the man as evolving from animals; they deal only with the past. There concern is not with the potential in man, the divinity that he can become. Religion looks into mans possibility and finds man is not only animal, but also divine: man is God. Both are true. The conflict between science and religion is futile. Their directions, their methods of work, their fields are very different. Man can find peace only in two ways: he becomes an animal again- then he will be one, then there will be no division, then again their will be peace, silence and harmony. But one fundamental law has to be understood, nothing can go backwards. Time does not move backwards. The trees cannot be reduced back to the original seed. Evolution goes on and on and there is no way to prevent it or force it backwards. Hence, all efforts of man to become animals and find peace are doomed to fail. Through alcohol, drugs, sex one can momentarily drown human sufferings, become animal but that would be momentary only. The only way is to grow towards divine; the only way is to move forward. But religion is not a welcome enquiry. It is boring. Therefore, faith has to be developed.

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Faith is often understood as Trust. That is not correct. A faith based on belief is blind; faith that grows out of intense enquiry becomes experience and an unshakable trust. Belief is intellectual; faith is emotional, intuitive, of the heart. With reason duality remains. Science means reason, doubt; religion means trust, faith. Reason cannot be of any help in the inner discipline. Belief is infra-rational, it is minus reason, supra-rational is a plus thing, and it is plus reason. Supra-rational is trust. For a supra-rational man, life is more than reason. Reason is accepted, there is no denial of it. Reason is good as far as it goes, it has to be used, but life is not finished there. Life is a bigger thing; reason is only a part of it. Belief is borrowed; trust is earned by ones inner growth. Trust has no element of doubt in it, belief creates a division, one part of the mind believes, the other part denies. Belief is always in somebody elses ideology, trust is our own potentiality. Organized religions are belief systems; they do not allow reason or enquiry about truth. Science can conclusively prove that realty is not based upon any belief system. That is why science can shake the foundation of any belief system because it concludes through experimentation. That is why heliocentric theory of Galileo was finally accepted although he suffered inquisition and was forced to spend his life under house arrest due to opposition from the Church. So was Charles Darwin who by propounding the theory of evolution created doubt in the scripture against the statement that it was God who created man in his own image. The latest discovery of God-particle is once again a movement in the same direction of denying God as a creator. Reason and Science have shaken the very foundation of organised religions belief system. Man is therefore in a dilemma. If he follows the established system of belief in God, he is, to some extent, relieved of his responsibility in times of grief and misery. But, if man follows science, it does not help him because science only contradicts established faith, it does not provide any solution to the human anxiety and misery. That is the tragedy before the modern man. The two world wars have shaken faith in scriptures and a benevolent God. God appears to be cruel and not benevolent. That is why Friedrich Nietzsche had to make the statement that God is dead. Science has failed to provide any solution to human misery. Trust is neither a belief system nor a part of scientific reasoning. Yes, reasoning and science can definitely help in our understanding the world of matter, the world of objects.

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And, through this understanding man can move ahead to understand the human psyche and the consciousness. Quantum mechanics has helped to improve our understanding of matter. Matter is no longer viewed as a thing, a substance. Matter underneath is pure energy, a movement, a process, non-substantial. Therefore, the Aristotelian logic of cause and effect in the world of objects has given way to the Principle of uncertainty in the microscopic world of things. Science no longer speaks in terms of certainty. Its language is more of a mystic now than that of the Aristotle. Mystics language is not that of the ordinary human logic. Mind thinks in linear terms, from point A to point B to point C, Mystic takes a quantum jump from A to C without passing through B. Life is not linear; it takes quantum leap that is why it is not comprehensible by the ordinary human mind. Trust in existence goes against the mind, because mind chooses and trust is choice less. What is, is, and cannot be otherwise. That is trust. That is the whole truth, not partial truth of the world of science and reasoning. Trust is the supreme science. The science that deals with matter is Physics. Physics has explored the matter to its very core and has discovered that matter is no longer a substance. It is energy. Law of cause and effect formed the very basis of Classical Physics. Classical Physics was deterministic. It has now given way to quantum physics. Principle of uncertainty has replaced determinism in the microscopic world. Certainty is gross; uncertainty is subtle. Mysticism proclaims that God is not causal. It is freedom. God is uncaused. Certainty means nothing is accidental. Uncertainty means everything is accidental. Life is uncertain. Life does not follow a law. A law means a restricted freedom, a limitation. Physics, through its exploration in the interiority of matter, has also found that electrons behave with freedom, their behaviour is uncertain. Particles are no longer limited to the dead, inanimate realm of matter of certainty. Particles behave consciously. Deterministic laws of the macrocosm do not any more govern the realm of particles. Particles therefore behave with uncertainty, with freedom. Particles behave like God. Descartes had laid the foundation of reductionism. According to him, if we reduce matter to its lowest common denominator and know the building block we can understand all that is material. That is how the search for particle began. However, in its ultimate core matter was not a thing, not material, but energy, an interconnectedness of patterns, a 8/13, Second Floor, Arya Nagar, Kanpur 208 002 Ph: (0512) 2551251-52; 9415101244 4

network of events. The whole governs the parts and not vice versa. Therefore, the search has to begin from the whole to understand matter or life. Whole is God, particle is only a part. God is therefore a particle and much more. That is how the ancient saying goes God in each particle (d.k d.k esa Hkxoku !) (Kan Kan Mein Bhagwan!) Physics has reached a dead end. There is nothing to explore any further. Physics speaks the language of the mystics. The search for life began by scientists through other disciplines, after Physicists had penetrated matter to its ultimate core. How did life evolve from inanimate world of matter or rocks? That was the beginning of Chemistry. The search for elements, inorganic substances, and inorganic compounds began. This penetrated further in the world of organic chemistry. Hormones, biology, chemistry was found to govern the physiology of living beings. All life forms require certain core chemical elements for biochemical functioning. These include carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulphur. Life synthesises proteins (amino acids) using polymers of nucleic acid. Life sciences have discovered the cellular structure, the tissues, organs, subsystems and the whole body in detail. Today physiology, anatomy, genetics and supporting sciences have developed to provide us a great understanding of the outer layer of living beings. However, other disciplines have repeated the same mistake that physics encountered during the search for particles. Biology found Cell as the lowest common denominator at the body level of the living beings. Cell was the smallest part in living beings similar to particles in the matter. The cell was a chain of chemical elements; the inorganic arranged in a pattern to become organic. In its search for the cause of disease, medicine also invented Germs. That was the lowest common denominator for disease. Kill the germs and be free of the disease has been the declaration of medical science so far. All the reductionism for search of parts in all the disciplines has failed to provide any satisfactory answer. Therefore, science has now moved towards concepts like holistic, ecological, interdependence, interconnectedness, and network. That is mysticism. We are all parts of a whole; call it God, existence, or whatever. Beyond the physiology is the world of the psyche. The science of psyche is psychology. Psychology is still in its nascent form. It is a preliminary science. Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Adler and many others studied the interiority of man to discover the world of unconsciousness. They interpret mans behaviour through dreams and deeper 8/13, Second Floor, Arya Nagar, Kanpur 208 002 Ph: (0512) 2551251-52; 9415101244 5

unconscious layers. They too have reduced the analysis of mind to a reductionist idea of unconsciousness. Mans suffering emanates from the mind. This suffering is intense with the growth of education, materialism and competition. Mind separates, divides and is always in search for the cause of misery through the reductionist Cartesian approach. That is the mistake. It is here that we need to deliberate upon the scriptures to decipher the meaning. Chapter 7 in Gita is known as Gyan- Vigyan Yoga. This chapter is very appropriate in understanding objective science called Vigyan with the Supreme Science called Gyan or the supreme knowledge. Knowledge of matter is Physics, knowledge of the physical outer body of the living beings is biology, chemistry and other life sciences, and the knowledge of mind is psychology. The word Prakriti covers all these sciences and is Vigyan. It is only after clear understanding of Prakriti or the science of matter, body and mind that one can move to the Supreme Science called Gyan or Purusha. Without a perfect understanding of Vigyan, one cannot move to Gyan. Krishna divides Prakriti into eight elements. Six out of these are common to all the species including man. These are Prithvi (Earth), Jala (Water), Vaayu (Air), Agni (Fire), Aakash (Space) and Manah (Mind). The first five elements are the subject matter of Physics, Chemistry and life sciences. The sixth element Manah (Mind) is the subject matter of psychology. The basic energy that supports life is called Agni (Fire). This is manifested in different fields such as gravitation, electricity, magnetism, nuclear (weak and strong). Albert Einstein worked hard to unify all these fields to determine the fundamental field from where all these fields emanate. He did not succeed during his lifetime and the search continues. Krishna calls this fundamental energy or field Agni or fire. Energy manifests in three material forms: Solid, Liquid and Gas. Krishna calls Earth as the solid form, Water as the liquid form and Air as the gaseous form of the fundamental energy Fire. Aakash is space, a place for matter to exist.

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Krishna has not mentioned time as a separate entity in Prakriti. Albert Einstein established that time is not a separate entity, space and time are interlinked, and it is space-time continuum. Matter has to exist in space and time and in three forms viz. solid, liquid and gas. Physics and relativity theory covers this knowledge. Life emanates through interaction of all the three forms of matter. Life grows through such interaction through dominance of Gunas viz Rajas, Tamas, and Satwa. Life has not evolved on other planets in our solar system because of lack of basic elements like water and air. Evolution of matter from earth through interaction of water and air is the subject matter of study in chemistry and life sciences. Growth of mind is also connected with evolution of matter from rocks to amoeba to man. It is through a natural process. The only two elements that distinguish man from rest of the life forms is Buddhi or Mahat and Ahamkara or Ego. Nature has gifted intellect to man. Intellect distinguishes man from rest of the species. It can be cultivated further in the human child through education and culture by the society. This faculty is also necessary for survival of the human child. Intellect cannot be cultivated in any other species except man. Ahamkara or ego is the subtlest form of matter, the grossest being Earth. The present day psychology has not fully understood Ahamkara. Ego is consciousness of the self. Only man is conscious of the self, other species are not aware of self. Ego or Ahamkara is the last barrier of man to attain to Gyan or the supreme science. The method to cross this barrier is entirely opposite to the method to grow intellect. Intellect is useful in our understanding Vigyan science of the objective, the physical world. Through intellect we can grasp Prakriti but it is a barrier for further growth to understand Purusha. Intellect is a borrowed knowledge. It is not in-built. Like in a computer, it is fed into us from the outside. 7

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To enter Purusha, intelligence or intuition is necessary. Intelligence or intuition is individual not collective. Tuition is a feeding from the outside; it is knowledge or Vigyan. Intuition is in-built; it is an individual growth not cultivated and is called wisdom or Gyan

Upto intellect it is a causal phenomenon, the world of certainty. Beyond Ahamkara, it is non-causal, an accidental happening. Upto intellect it is Sankhya or Vigyan. Beyond this is the Yoga which prepares ground for moving into the world of noncausal. The eight steps of Patanjali are Yama, Niyam, Asan, Pranayam, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. From Yama until Dharana everything is causal. Efforts are required. Dhyana or Meditation is preparation to enter the non-causal or Samadhi. Meditation is a preparation to give up all efforts. Until this happens, one cannot transcend the world of Vigyan. Meditation is a preparation to enter Gyan and is the supreme science where all efforts are a barrier to enter the Purusha or to transcend Prakriti. Yoga without Sankhya is incomplete. Sankhya without Yoga is also incomplete. Intellect grows into intelligence with the help of Sankhya and Yoga. The ego dissolves through Sankhya and Yoga. One goes into dissolution of self or ego through the growth of awareness. Once the awareness grows, there is a quantum jump- a second birth or Dwija. One dies and is reborn or resurrected. It is a disconnection with the past. Then Trust happens. Man realises his divinity, his full potential, full consciousness that is Purusha or God. Trust is the ultimate happening. 8

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