Question: Does strong involvement with technology militate against our realisation of God?

Sri Chinmoy: Technology as such does not stand against realisation, but we have to know who is dealing with technology. Science, the purest science, does not negate God, but the scientist, the one who is dealing with science, may think that he can go on without God because science has made the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb, etc. If scientific research and discovery have made all these things, the scientist may feel, "Then what more do I need?" So the scientist is satisfied with the way he is progressing in his achievement. But again we have to see that there is something called inner realisation, Self-realisation. For that we have to do something else. It is inner, not outer, research that we need. What science and technology will offer to the world will never stand against God-realisation. But we have to know what we can expect from science. From it we cannot expect God-realisation. God-realisation is inner oneness with the highest, utmost, Absolute Truth. And for that we have to go beyond the senses. We have to conquer our senses.

We have three bodies: one is physical; another, inside the physical, is the subtle body; the third one is called the causal body, where the truth exists in seed form. The physical body is called the Sthula Sharira (which means the "Gross Body"); the subtle body is called the Sukshma Sharira (which means the "Subtle Physical" or "Ethereal Body"); and the Causal Body" is called the Karana Sharira (or the "body where action starts").

So we have the physical and we have to go beyond it; then we have to go beyond the subtle; then we have to go to the causal body. When we have the proper illumination, we can transcend all the limitations around us. We can transcend these planes of consciousness inside us, around us, before us and behind us. Then we can have the highest Oneness with the Absolute. At that time, we care nothing for the Sthula Sharira, the Sukshma Sharira or the Karana Sharira, because we have gone far beyond them to the One Absolute Source.

This Absolute Oneness, this Highest Absolute, is something which technology and science do not, unfortunately, aim at. Here is the problem. If you want to see the existence of God in science, I wish to say that you are absolutely right in your wish. Within science, God does exist; within everything He exists. In science you can have great, greater, greatest success, but that success will be within the boundaries of science; that is to say, your success will be circumscribed by the scientific method. Your success will not lead you to God-realisation.

A Self-realised person will never stand against the achievements of science or technology. At the same time, Self-realisation knows that nothing can stand in its way.

There is no harm if you are interested in technology or science. But you have to know what you are aiming at. If you are aiming at the Absolute, at the Transcendental Truth, you won't get it through science. You have to go deep within yourself and make your self-discovery. When you have discovered yourself, you will have discovered the Highest Truth and that Truth is God.

There is no barrier between a seeker and a technologist, but one has to know what one is aspiring for. A true spiritual aspirant will naturally follow his own spiritual path. At the end of the path, he will reach his Goal. But the Goal will always differ from that of the scientist, because each of them has different motives. They have two different ways of realising or fulfilling themselves. Naturally one who wants to realise the Highest, the Absolute, the Transcendental Truth, will eventually achieve this. Naturally he is the better of the two. In his inner world, there is no hankering. Once he has identified and realised his conscious oneness with the Highest Truth, with God, he has nothing else to cry for. He has everything and he is everything.

In the case of technology, one may be thoroughly conversant with it and also get intense gratification from one's success, but there will always be an inner sense of insufficiency, of wanting something more, something greater. That "something more" will not come to the technologist. It can offer only more technology or more science. It cannot offer anything beyond. Only God-realisation can offer everything, within and beyond, because it is a realisation of total oneness. In realisation, you don't feel that you have lost anything or gained anything. You are one with everything. You become everything.

In the outer world, in the outer process, you get something, you achieve something or you profit by something. But in God-realisation, you become precisely what you want to be.