From: Ron
Date: July 26, 2005 6:57:14 AM EDT
To: postaum2005@sriaurobindocenter-la.com
Subject: Framework for an Intersubjective Dialogue?

Framework for an Intersubjective Dialogue?

Dear Friends,

What an interesting forum this is! Many thanks to Richard and Debashish for creating it. I've summarized some of my recent thoughts below, with footnotes for those interested.

1) Since reading Richard's recent posts re Habermas, I've been thinking about possible frameworks for an intersubjective dialogue between science and spirituality, hopefully one grounded in, following Debashish's suggestion, "an affective collective space of community." [See Note #1 below.]

2) I went to sleep Saturday night with these questions, and upon awakening Sunday morning, I became aware of my mind repeating, like a mantra, the Vedic words "Purusha and Prakriti are Divine Consorts." It felt like an important intuitive hint, so I began searching through some of Sri Aurobindo & the Mother's books to see what it might mean. [See Note #2 below for details and Notes #3 for some of Sri Aurobindo's comments re this.]

3) AhHa! While reading some of the Mother's words, I suddenly got it! - I saw that it's a misleading assumption that physical reality and spirituality are two fundamentally different domains, since they are in Truth the One Being. - I saw that Integral Yoga is about becoming able to directly and continuously experience this divine unity by becoming its willing instrument in bringing this awareness into the inconscient world. This is possible because beneath all appearances to the contrary, the material world is in its hidden nature the Divine Itself. - Although I had read these ideas before, and though several folks on this forum have been reminding us of it, I hadn't yet had a real personal experience of it. It was an illuminating moment, and it led to some speculations about this hidden unity being a possible framework that could contribute to a fruitful dialogue between science and spirituality.

4) *Proposed Framework for an Intersubjective Dialogue*

Speculation #1:
Modern physics (especially quantum physics) and the Integral Yoga are descriptions of some of the same (or very similar) phenomena in the domain of manifesting Prakriti. But the deepest experiences of Purusha are accessible only via conscientious spiritual practices, such as Integral Yoga. - As the Mother notes in Footnote #2 below, "Modern physics is in some sense beginning to explore the realm of the "divine Presence in the atom." - This began with the discovery of sub-atomic particles, which developed into the discipline called particle physics, which in turn led to quantum theory. [See Note #4 below.] - Quantum physics is now revealing that extraordinary behaviors are frequently exhibited by these tiny particles. Some of these behaviors seem similar to aspects of the Divine described by Yogic practitioners. [See Note #5 below.]

Speculation #2:
If #1 above is accurate, this may give us a new opening for potentially collaborative conversations with scientists. - In Richard's terms, I think this could be an opportunity for an "Habermasian intersubjective discourse" between Aurobindians and scientists (and other interested people). - I agree with Debashish's important point that this process is more likely to be successful if undertaken in "affective community spaces, which start with a basic affective (heart-based hopefully deepening to an even deeper, psychic-based) acceptance of all others in the community as constituents of an intersubjective reality, while knowing full well that there may not be a congruence of ideas." - I'm now wondering if these new scientific developments, along with a growing interest in acting as a true collective, are in some sense being orchestrated by Ishwara- Shakti Itself?

Speculation #3:
If 1&2 above hold, then perhaps increasing numbers of scientists (and interested non-scientists) involved in these dialogues will be inspired to begin practicing Integral Yoga, or some culturally appropriate variation of it, and thus begin directly experiencing Purusha-Prakriti themselves. Or perhaps they'll experience it via "contagion" from hanging out with such practitioners. [See Note #6 below.] - I think these dialogues are important, perhaps even necessary, for the continuing positive evolution of the human race. If scientists do not become engaged in an effective form of the Yoga, then I'm concerned that the products of science (and byproducts such as dehumanization and environmental pollution) will have increasingly destructive impacts.

"A Love without limits has joined him to all creatures or revealed to him a world of inseparable intimacy and unspeakable sweetness and beauty and begun to impose its law of perfection and its ecstacy even amidst the disharmony of terrestrial life."

- Sri Aurobindo

Namaste,

~ ron
______________

#1. One barrier to this is that most modern scientists, and many non-scientists, consider that the realms of science and spirituality are irreconcilably distinct. Their perspective is that since science concerns itself with the realm of objective manifestation and spirituality is about variously described and subjectively experienced non-manifest domains, there is no possible intellectual bridge between them. - There is a similar view on the spiritual side, where experiences of the Divine are understood to be personal and inexorably private. The psychologist William James famously said these "mystical experiences" are "ineffable;" i.e., they defy verbal expression. Many spiritually focused people therefore have a tendency to disregard the scientific viewpoint. - Thus present-day humanity has ended up with a general agreement on both sides to not even try to communicate across these gaps. (Though some persist in trying to convert members of the opposite camp to their own view.) - All this presents a difficult challenge indeed to creating successful intersubjective communication between scientifically-oriented and spiritually-oriented people.

#2. While Purusha (the spiritual world) and Prakriti (the manifest world) appear to our normal consciousness to be two distinct domains, the hidden, most lovely secret is that they are 'Consorts.' And because they are Divine Consorts who experience Love & Harmony at the most profound level, they are actually One Being, Who shows up to us with two distinct faces. - The Vedas say that when this unity is recognized, Purusha-Prakriti becomes "Ishwara-Shakti," but for the sake of simplicity, I'll continue to use the phrase Purusha- Prakriti to refer to both. - I came across a quote by the Mother saying that our initial glimpse of this unity is often through the experience of what many religions call a "divine spark within." Mother said:

"… but this does not mean that it is within the body: it is within the consciousness in another dimension, and there are beings who have a contact with it, others who haven't. But if you come to the divine Presence in the atom, the image is easier to understand, for there you touch so infinitesimal a domain that you are on the borderline where you can no longer distinguish between two, three, four or five dimensions. If you study modern physics, you will understand what I mean. The movements constituting an atom are, in the matter of size, so imperceptible that they cannot be understood with our three- dimensional understanding, the more so as they follow laws which elude completely this three-dimensional idea. So if you take refuge there, you may say that the divine spark is at the centre of each atom and you won't be far from the truth …" [From *Collected Works of the Mother,* Volume 4, 139-140.]

One interpretation of this is that the Mother was demonstrating a way to bridge the gulf by using a language comprehensible to scientists. And she foresaw that modern physics is deeply about what in spiritual terms could be described as investigating some of the most fundamental workings of Prakriti. - One example of science doing this is the current holy grail of modern physics: the search for a Unified Field Theory from which both quantum physics and relativity can be derived. 'Quantum Gravity' is one name for this field, 'Superstrings' is another. Both are investigating the domain of the Planck scale, the first manifestation of Prakriti following the Big Bang. As the Mother says, it's a non-material, extra dimensional domain.

#3. Sri Aurobindo puts it this way in his *Synthesis of Yoga*:

- "Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers, but Ishwara-Shakti contain each other. Ishwara is Purusha who contains Prakriti and rules by the power of the Shakti with him. Shakti is Prakriti ensouled by Purusha and acts by the will of the Ishwara which is her own will and whose presence in her movement she carries always with her … the Ishwari Shakti, [the] divine Conscious-Force and World-Mother, becomes a mediatrix between the eternal One and the manifested Many." (p. 116)

- "Again and always it is the transcendent and universal Shakti who is the sole doer. But behind her is the one Supreme who manifests though her as the dual power, Purusha-Prakriti, Ishwara-Shakti. The Supreme becomes dynamic as the Shakti and is by her the sole originator and Master of works in the universe." (p. 204) 
 
- "Ishwara-Shakti stands behind the relation of Purusha-Prakriti and its ignorant action and turns it to an evolutionary purpose. The Ishwara-Shakti realisation can bring participation in a higher dynamism and a divine working and a total unity and harmony of the being in a spiritual nature." (p. 205)

- "A Love without limits has joined him to all creatures or revealed to him a world of inseparable intimacy and unspeakable sweetness and beauty and begun to impose its law of perfection and its ecstacy even amidst the disharmony of terrestrial life." ( p. 120)

- "The rest of our progress depends on our knowledge of the ways in which the Lord of works manifests his Will in the world and in us and executes them through the transcendent and universal Shakti." (p. 206)

#4. Examples of the continuing work in quantum theory. - Some biologists claim that quantum states have been critical in the evolution of life and consciousness; e.g. Johnjoe McFadden's book *Quantum Evolution" which I discussed in a previous post. Hameroff believes that quantum states in the brain are the proximal cause of human consciousness itself. - And we now have the revolutionary claim by Sir Roger Penrose that "Platonic values" like mathematical truths, beauty, harmony and sacred joy are inherent in the structure of spacetime itself, a domain called the Planck scale. And Penrose and Stuart Hameroff hypothesize that humans are influenced by these values via quantum effects in tiny microtubules inside the neurons of the brain. (The number & complexity of the microtubule networks within each living cell may rival the complexity of the brain itself!) - The Planck scale exists at the tinier than infinitesimal dimension of 10^-35 meters. Physicists had to invent new languages of profound mathematics to discover the Planck scale. It's the quantized structure of spacetime itself which came into existence a tiny instant after the Big Bang (10^43 seconds), which in turn birthed the manifest material universe of matter and energy. - These scales are so tiny that they cannot be measured by any conceivable apparatus. As the Mother says, they essentially exist in other dimensions. How they work has been described by elegant mathematics which have such a deep ability to describe and predict measurable phenomenon that the Planck scale is now accepted as actually real by nearly all modern physicists.

#5. Examples of almost miraculous quantum phenomena: - Non-locality: two or more once "entangled" particles seem to maintain an intimate relationship, such that when separated even over cosmic-scale distances - even to another galaxy, a change in one will be *instantly* reflected in a complementary change in the other. - Tunneling: an electron trapped on one side of an insulating barrier will suddenly disappear and magically reappear on the other side, traveling from point A to point B without passing through any of the points between. (This in fact occurs with all household electric plugs since their copper prongs upon exposure to air are very quickly covered with a very thin, near perfectly insulating, layer of corrosion.) - Superposition: an electron or photon can seem to simultaneously occupy two or more (perhaps even a near infinite number) of what were once thought to be mutually exclusive states. This has become the basis of the new field called quantum computing.

#6. A central goal of Integral Yoga is becoming able to directly and continuously experience this divine unity and to become its willing instrument in bringing this awareness into the inconscient world. This is possible because beneath all appearances to the contrary, the material world is in its hidden nature the Divine Itself.

- end -