Part I: Chapter III / XII

Yoga and the Outer Sciences

Having discussed in some detail the various methods of yoga, we may in conclusion, remind ourselves of the true warning sounded by Shankara:

The three-fold path; the path of the world, the path of desires, and the path of scriptures, far from giving the knowledge of Reality, keeps one perpetually bound in the Prison-House of the Universe. Deliverance comes only when one frees himself from this iron chain.

Liberation cannot be achieved except by the perception of the identity of the individual spirit with the Universal spirit. It can be achieved neither by yoga, nor by Sankhya, nor by the practice of religious ceremonies, nor by mere learning.

Shankaracharya

To bring up to date Shankara’s message that True Knowledge is a matter of direct perception and not mere ceremony, ritual or inference, we may add that it cannot come through the outer sciences either. The discoveries of the modern physical sciences have indeed been spectacular, and have confirmed many of the views about the nature of the cosmos and of existence voiced by the yogic systems. They have established, beyond doubt, that everything in the universe is relative, and that all forms are fundamentally brought into existence by the interplay of positive and negative energies. These discoveries have led some to presume that physical sciences can and will lead us to the same knowledge that yogins in the past sought through yoga; that science will replace yoga and make it irrelevant.

A blind man, though he may not be able to see the sun, may yet feel its heat and warmth. His awareness of some phenomenon which he cannot directly perceive, may lead him to devise and perform a series of experiments in order to know its nature. These experiments may yield him a lot of valuable data. He may be able to chart more accurately, perhaps, than the normal man, the course of the sun, its seasonal changes and the varying intensity of its radiation. But can all this knowledge that he has gathered be a substitute for a single moment’s opportunity to view the sun directly for himself?

As with the blind man and the man of normal vision, so too with the scientist and the yogin. The physical sciences may yield us a lot of valuable, indirect knowledge of the Universe and its nature, but this knowledge can never take the place of the direct perception, for just as the blind man’s inferential knowledge cannot get at the sun’s chief attribute which is light, so too the scientist in his laboratory cannot get at the cosmic energy’s chief attribute, which is Consciousness. He may know a great deal about the universe, but his knowledge can never add up to universal consciousness.

That consciousness can only be attained through the inner science, the science of yoga, which by opening our inner eye, brings us face to face with the Cosmic Reality. He whose inner eye has been opened, no longer needs to rely on spiritual hearsay, the assertions of his teacher, or mere philosophic or scientific inference. He sees God for himself and that exceeds all proof.

He can say with Christ,

Behold the Lord!

or with Guru Nanak,

The Lord of Nanak is visible everywhere,

or with Sri Ramakrishna,

I see Him just as I see you – only very much more intensely

(when replying to Naren – as Vivekananda was then known – on his very first visit, in answer to his question: Master, have you seen God?).