Science is the systemic study of nature. Science is the result of our critical thinking process. It started with our critical thinking ability to look into the different natural processes, and initially, we ended up calling them miracles of nature. So, it pushed us to make room for hypothetical thinking. In this process, we created many possible explanations to understand all that was happening around us, in that process we created many theoretical concepts, including the existence of some supernatural power (God)—people of different faiths name it and imagine it in various forms. All of this was a continuous effort by our brain to know Nature and its functioning.
We created many mythological characters that can do what our brain thinks to do. Characters that can treat our illnesses, characters that can fly, characters that can see the things in remote areas, characters that can protect our society from diseases, famine and other disasters. We started making offerings to them to please them, so that they may protect us. Our brain began finding reasons for our successes and failures in their happiness and unhappiness. For example, in India, smallpox (a disease caused by a virus now eradicated) was believed to be the cause due to the unhappiness of a deity known as ShitlaMata(Mother Shitla). A few decades ago, there were many temples dedicated to this deity in North India, but now we possess scientific knowledge that a virus causes this disease, and with the development of a potent vaccine, it was possible to eradicate this very infectious disease from the world.
We can find these types of examples in all religions, cultures, and communities all over the world throughout the history of the development of civilization. We have different names as a controller of the various natural processes in different religions, cultures, and communities. All of them are part of a continuous process that is going on in the human brain that tries to know the truth by thinking hypothetically first and then examining that hypothesis through observation and experimentation.
Though most of these may be proven wrong today—many of them appeared weird in the modern era—they were part of a great developmental process which finally emerged as “Science” in front of us. It was like the first step to reach the top of scientific achievements of the human brain.
If we consider the natural developmental history, the history of the development of human civilization is very short; it is only in the last few thousand years. In this short span, we have created several beliefs and religions, some of them exist today, and some of them have disappeared. In this process, we can easily hypothesize that science may be a future religion since science in its present form appeared on the landscape of human intelligence only a few hundred years back.
Scientifically, spirituality and spiritual thinking are both parts of the same process, where several positive or negative thoughts take shape in our brain. Among a broad spectrum of thoughts throughout the day, we have specific ideas that question the existence of our “Self.” We have questions in front of us “Who am I?”;“What is life?”; “What is the purpose of life?”; “What happens to us after death?”; “What is the universe?”; “Who made it?”; “When and how did it start?”; “What is its future?”; “Is there life anywhere else in the universe (imagination of aliens)?”, etc.
Why do we ask these questions? Why are they important? What difference will they make? These three questions may have their answer to our understanding of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA is made up of two helix-like structures, and four amino acids are arranged in a manner of coding in it. This coding is different for different species. A lot of biological evolution created DNA, and finally, a lot of development created human DNA. DNA in all living cells, including human DNA, is made up of the same elements, that is, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and phosphorous. In that way, it has the same elemental composition as in all living animal cells. Here, we can say that the DNA has the key to life and encodes different forms of life. Here, science has solved the mystery. Now we are in a better position to understand the process of life and its development, but still, many questions arise. We need to understand further that it is part of that continuous process called “Process of Evolution or Development,” which is continuously going on in Nature. Our brain is also a part of Nature. It is easy to understand that whatever we have today in the form of scientific, social, cultural, religious and spiritual knowledge, it is the product of this ongoing process.
Mahesh Bhatt
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