Questions On Science

Question: Do People Today Have More Confidence...

Question: Do people today have more confidence in what they know because of science?

Sri Chinmoy: Science has made human beings consciously confident. Science is progressing through the mind and intellect, and even through intuition. When human beings on earth achieve something, it immediately becomes more or less humanity's mental, vital or physical possession. Even if something is achieved on the scientific plane, it immediately becomes established on the physical, vital and mental planes. Now people are confident about everything. These days people don't care to speak of God; they know everything. Even a child knows everything. A few hundred years ago, when people did not know something, they said they didn't know. They would never say that they did know. But now people don't say, "I don't know." No, they won't confess that they don't know something. People often have such disproportionate confidence in their realisation, which is completely undivine.

The problem is that people are insincere. We tell a lie ten times and then we believe it. Ten times we say that we know all about God. Once we are convinced that we have realised God, we feel that we are giving realisation to everybody. So a kind of confidence has entered that is founded on nothing. It is false confidence. Even some of the disciples have the feeling that they know everything. Some people don't touch my books. Why? They know my philosophy: love, devotion and surrender. Out of a thousand disciples, on some days only twenty read my writings. Some read only five minutes or ten minutes; others don't have even that much time. Many watch television or read newspapers. But if they read my writings for even five minutes, they would enter into my world as well as into their meditation-world.

Question: What Is The Supreme Goal Of...

Question: What is the supreme goal of the scientist?

Sri Chinmoy: You are a biologist. As a scientist, you should know that the supreme goal of the scientist is to discover life in everything. What a Yogi calls life, a scientist should also call life. The Yogi has discovered the truth that there is life in everything. When a machine is operating, there is a cosmic life-force operating in and through it. Science also sees life in everything, but it does not want to give life the credit. Science gets malicious pleasure by refusing to acknowledge this force as life. With its fertile brain science has created the machine, and inside the machine is the life-force. The scientist sees this force operating within the machine, he sees that the machine is working, but he does not want to call it life.

So, if the scientist wants to become the real son of God, then he has to find life in everything. This life is God's real Dream that is trying to manifest itself in everything. When the scientist discovers this force, he will enter into God's real Dream. At that time he will see that he has not actually discovered anything. Although the scientist may at first think that he is the discoverer of life, in truth, life itself is the discoverer of the scientist. Man's science is trying to create life, but that life is not the life we are talking about. The life we are talking about is the hidden cosmic force that the Yogi embodies in his inner life. The scientist has to discover that inner life-force. When he discovers it, he has to feel that this life is nothing but his own realisation. This should be the scientist's ultimate goal. In my translation of Lotus-Petals by Nolini, the great Indian savant, there is an article written many years ago, entitled "God and the Scientist." If you read that article, then you will get much information about the scientist's approach to the spiritual life and God.

Question: Scientists Say That The Physical Universe...

Question: Scientists say that the physical universe is expanding all the time. Some of them say that it is going to keep expanding forever and others say that it is going to contract again. What is your view?

Sri Chinmoy: Anything that expands is not going to contract. The only thing is, after expansion you can play a different type of game. Expansion itself is a game. Once this game ends, another game takes place. It is like the manifestation of a spiritual mission, let us say. A mission is expanding and expanding. But a time may come when people are no longer inspired by it; they are not doing anything. So naturally there will no longer be expansion. But that doesn't mean that the mission will come back to the state it was in before it started expanding. No! Only it is dead, lifeless. The river was flowing, flowing, but now all of a sudden there is no impetus, no energy, no life. The river is no longer flowing. But we cannot say that it has come back to the same state. Once we leave our starting point, we can't come back. We may not run, we may walk or stumble but the starting point is gone. Once evolution starts on any plane, we don't come back to the initial stage.

Only on very rare occasions in human life, when people have not satisfied their lowest vital desires, do they go back to the animal world. The soul actually enters into the animal life there, but that is only for a few months. Otherwise, once we leave the starting point, we don't go back there. So nobody here is going back to stone-life or plant-life or animal-life. Once something has happened, it is done, it is finished. It will not again become the starting point, because evolution is always taking place.

Question: How Does Giving Your Body To...

Question: How does giving your body to science affect you spiritually?

Sri Chinmoy: It is neither noble nor ignoble. It is only an individual choice. As you know, sometimes the body is cremated, sometimes it is buried. Once the soul leaves the body, the soul does not care what happens to the body. Once the bird flies away, only the cage remains. At that time we can do anything we want with the cage. One individual gets satisfaction by saying, "After I die I want to give my body to a hospital so that medical science can make some experiments which will be of great help in the future." But another person says, "Only let God's Will operate in and through my relatives. Let my relatives bury me if they want to; if they want to cremate me let them cremate me." So he leaves it entirely up to the wishes of the relatives. Or an individual may say, "No, want tradition to be carried on. I want my body to be buried or cremated in the normal way." But no particular way will necessarily please God more. God has given us the freedom to make an individual choice. If we want cremation, God will say, "Wonderful!" If we want burial, God will say, "Wonderful"' If we want our body to be taken to a hospital for experimentation after the soul leaves, God will in no way be displeased or dissatisfied with us.