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Ma’s version was a little different: “My mind was always given to knowledge. In spiritual pursuit also, it is knowledge that is constantly focused. What are the factors making our mind behave in a particular manner? What causes the constriction, the unjust prejudices that hinder expansion and sublimation so covetable and enriching? How can the personality overcome the negative trait? Are not all these also research and scientific treasure?”

Dear and blessed I,

Harih Om Tat Sat.

… Yesterday we asked Swami Nirviseshananda and Ma Gurupriya to tell us about their research work. I then wondered: “Coming from such a scientific orientation and background, do you feel the present pursuit of Brahma Vidya to be less matching? Is your spiritual quest and fondness just an additional trend of your mind, or does it come in tune with the scientific orientation?”

Swami Nirviseshananda said: “I don’t know of a time when my mind was not given to seeking the Truth. In that quest I have found scientific pursuit and spiritual sādhanā always in complementary role – each strengthening and refining the other. Both physics and spiritual seeking used to give me the sublimity of unification and expansion, the joy of arriving at greater and greater harmony underlying the world variety.

“By nature, I am given to delight in knowing the basics of anything. Although the scientific character of both the quest and finding in the two pursuits remains the same, Brahma Vidya appeals to me as much more fundamental, rational and fulfilling. No Physicist can ever be satisfied with the predicament that although the observer himself is part of the world he is enquiring into, his quest is ‘artificially truncated’ by restricting the field of investigation to the objective world alone, disregarding the subject, the ultimate observer.”

Ma’s version was a little different: “My mind was always given to knowledge. In spiritual pursuit also, it is knowledge that is constantly focused. What are the factors making our mind behave in a particular manner? What causes the constriction, the unjust prejudices that hinder expansion and sublimation so covetable and enriching? How can the personality overcome the negative trait? Are not all these also research and scientific treasure?”

I was happy to hear these words. I have always felt, despite the fact that our scriptures are wisdom-treasures for which any intelligent, rational human being must covet at any time of civilization, our people, especially intellectuals, do not turn to them with earnest and keen interest. Spirituality remains more an indulgence of the pious and ascetics, than a pursuit of the wise and the rational. When will this incongruity cease, and the spiritual treasure begin to strengthen and enrich the world of intelligence and reason, science and technology?

Last time when I was taken to IIT-Delhi by Prof. Dhar, to address a collection of students there, Prof. Dhar was telling me that concepts like ‘rāga-dvesha’ etc. had become part of their teaching the subject of Humanities. “Personality development – the Vedantic way” was the subject I was to dwell on. So, is it that the modern world of science and technology has begun to recognize the role of spiritual wisdom and its bounties in the life of man and in the scheme of civilization?

Behaviour proceeds from the mind. In science, the field observed may be the objects, but the ultimate observer is the spiritual consciousness. The finding of the scientist in any field of objective science springs from the subject. The suggestion and compulsion for finding, though related to the object, emerges from the Subject and Subject alone.

I wish ‘Ma’ and ‘Ba’ both in their mission contribute something substantial in the way of determining the place of spiritual wisdom in the scientific and civilized world.

Love and Ashirvād,
Yours, Swamiji.

– Vicharasethu- September 1992