Spirituality In Scientific Thought Process

Science is based on the hard facts, and those have proofs and explanations, it makes it dry and unattractive to the basic human thoughts which have the strong attraction to the mysticism. The human brain takes the unsolved and unknown imaginations and mysteries as a challenge, and it provokes us to think, which finally work as a force of attraction. If we have definitive proves and facts than a mystery lost its appeal, and we take it as usual. We can find many such examples throughout the development of human race. We can see and perceive many definitions of interactions and relationships between Science and Spirituality. Since spirituality itself has various meanings and ways to define it, we can find mention of science in one way or other in the realms of spirituality and religiosity. Most of the time science and its concept are being used to approve or disapprove something or other. Only a few hundreds of years back there were conflicts between the scientific facts and religious or cultural thoughts. People with scientific thinking and scientists were targeted and punished, we can see these incidences even today, but now they are not culturally and socially approved.

Still, in the modern era, we see many incidences where science and scientific thinking being targeted for one or other vested interests by some groups, they use scientific research to approve their beliefs, but simultaneously they see and portray scientific thinking as a curse or harmful for the society and people. Science is knowledge which requires evidence proved by experimentation or observations, so most of the time it will be correct. It depends on our human intentions that how we use this knowledge. If we use it with negative thought processes, we develop ultramodern weapons of mass destruction, and if we use it with positive thoughts, we use it in the protection and conservation of the environment to make it conducive for the propagation of life. So, it is not the science but our human intentions and thinking which need to be corrected. It includes all thoughts including religious thoughts.

Spiritual thought processes and spiritual thinking where we think about our existence in the universe beyond our physical body and its connectedness to the whole universe, get influenced by our many thoughts of religion, culture, science, and philosophy. Our human intentions define all our ideas and thinking based on our interests. Our interests may get corrupted once we start thinking about our immediate and narrow goals. Our spiritual thought processes and spiritual thinking connect us with the vastness of the universe while our personal, political and religious vested interests for us and our groups shrink that thought of connectedness. Therefore, all the vested interests directly stimulate the inflammatory human emotions like hatred, intolerance, fear, violence, etc., all of them are the reflections of our thoughts which we are carrying forward from our ancestors in the animal kingdom in the course of evolution. Spiritual thinking helps us in controlling, correcting and healing all the negative thoughts in all domains of our thoughts, and it prevents our thoughts to be self-centric and prevent them from our vested interests.

The primary aim of science is to unfold the mystery of nature and reach to the truth behind the different natural phenomenon. In that way, it is shaping the humanity and human values by clearing various misconceptions and myths. We have witnessed a direct conflict between our thought processes of religion with science since it directly or indirectly appeared challenging them. It is the spiritual component of our religious and cultural thought processes which create a conducive environment for creating communication channels between religions, cultures, and science. We can see the progressively improved relationship and understanding between the two. It is spirituality and spiritual thought processes which prevent the use of science and its inventions under the negative thought processes to protect humanity and human values.

Dr. Mahesh Bhatt