Читать книгу The Science of Religion - Howard Barry Schatz - Страница 4

“They wanted to find the kernel of truth that lay at the heart of all the various historical religions, which, since the dawn of history, had been trying to define the reality of the same God.”1 - Karen Armstrong

As we reflect on the history of civilization, we tend to view modern man as the culmination of a long evolutionary process. We view ourselves as the highly sophisticated product of all the Ages of man, each contributing to what we have become as a species. But, perhaps that is a self-centered view. What if the evolutionary curve actually reached its peak several thousand years ago, and mankind is now in decline? Is that possible? Don’t the great advances of modern science prove that mankind has been taking great strides forward? We can certainly talk about the ascent of rational man. But, perhaps the evolution of man’s rational mind occurs at the expense of his intuitive, holistic mind, and its ability to integrate accumulated knowledge in order to guide us forward. We will take a closer look at the arc of history in an attempt to determine what might actually constitute “progress” for the species.

This text will explore the history of the dynamic between science and religion; between the exoteric material world and the esoteric spiritual world; between the conscious waking world of logic and science, and the meditative world of dreams, myths, allegory, and prophecy. Civilization has lost access to its rich legacy of ancient knowledge and wisdom, because people are no longer in the habit of accessing their inner world. As a result, civilization seems to have lost its way. We have lost our inner compass. Some may call it our intuitive mind, but others might say that we must relearn how to listen to the “voice” of our soul — the ever present guardian angel that guides us through life.

The challenge of living in today’s fast-paced world requires highly specialized knowledge, if we are to satisfy civilization’s requirements for an effective division of labor. Specialization is simply a fact of modern life. Modern man seems narrow-minded in comparison to the great ideal of Renaissance humanism: the ability to acquire and integrate knowledge. Were Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Jefferson considered Renaissance men because they were unique geniuses, or was it because they understood what it took to achieve the Renaissance ideal? Is it fair to call a subject matter expert narrow-minded? And, is the Renaissance ideal of integrating knowledge even relevant in today’s world?

If we go back further in time, to the Middle Ages, we would find that today’s liberal arts education is based on the 7 liberal arts, namely: the mathematical disciplines of the Quadrivium (Latin: four roads). The Quadrivium is comprised of: arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy; plus the language disciplines of the Trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.2 But, the Quadrivium has much more ancient roots. And, although there are those who would argue that the evolution of religion is largely a reflection of human psychological needs, economics, the politics of power, and other material circumstances, this text will attempt to establish that it is the mathematics and science of the Quadrivium that defines the origins of religion, while the aforementioned socioeconomic factors have only served to distort religion’s basic tenets throughout history — the exact sciences of antiquity as “eternal truth” filtered through a parlor game of telephone — with a calamitously divisive impact on civilization.

This text will attempt to establish that archetypal myths, as well as the complete warp and woof of Biblical allegory, have been structured by the exact sciences in antiquity. In ancient Greece, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle believed that music was central to the Quadrivium because the science of sound provided a way to logically integrate these disciplines into a coherent framework of knowledge.3 For Plato, the mathematics of music defined what Euclid would call “first principles.” Here are Plato’s own words, taken from his dialogue Laws:

As I have stated several times, he who has not contemplated the mind of nature which is said to exist in the stars, and gone through the previous training, and seen the connection of music with these things, and harmonized them all with laws and institutions, is not able to give a reason of such things as have a reason.4

In Plato’s Timaeus, mathematics and music were described as the language of the Demiurge5 who fashioned and organized the universe. Since man was considered an important part of that universe, Pythagoras and Plato believed that man’s soul, as well as the entire universe, could be expressed in terms of both number and sound.6 Pythagoras and Plato were not alone in their efforts to describe “first principles” in musical terms. The Tantric tradition that straddles Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, also teaches that: “The ultimate Reality is unfathomable creative vibration (spanda), the basis for all distinct vibrations composing the countless objects of the subtle and material realms,... omnipresent vibrancy.”7

In the educational systems of ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, students were taught how to integrate the Quadrivium’s disciplines into a logical and coherent framework of knowledge based on the science of sound. The rigor of a holistic approach to the liberal arts was thought to provide a foundation for sophia (Greek: wisdom). But, great knowledge does not necessarily imply great wisdom. So, what then is wisdom? And, how would we describe Plato’s understanding of philo-sophia (Greek: love of wisdom)? Both knowledge and wisdom are widely acknowledged as virtues that have somehow been embedded within the great religious and philosophical writings of antiquity, like the Bible and Plato’s dialogues. Since we struggle to find meaning in these ancient texts, could it be that we have not been properly prepared to hear their message? Even if a proper liberal arts education empowers us to integrate our knowledge into the logically consistent framework of a comprehensive cosmology and cosmogony, we would still need to learn how the ancients transformed knowledge into wisdom.

Substantial evidence will be presented in an effort to establish meditation as the “wisdom practice” of religion since the dawn of civilization.8 Deep meditation goes beyond the logic of the brain’s frontal lobes, to access an older part of the brain called the limbic system. Modern research suggests that meditation enhances, and provides a level of control over the limbic system, which influences both the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system. The limbic system is a set of brain structures that include the amygdala, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, the thalamus, and the pituitary gland (“master gland”). It is the “inner brain” that surrounds the brain stem, functioning as the “gatekeeper” between the neocortex (newly developed rational brain) and the brain stem and spine (oldest reptilian brain). Every second, our brain’s sensory apparatus receives and filters millions of signals that are prioritized by the limbic system and passed on to the hippocampus for further processing by the cognitive regions of the cerebral cortex.9

More simply put, the brain creates theories through pattern recognition in an attempt to make sense of the millions of sensory inputs per second while the ego continuously and selectively sifts through these inputs looking for patterns that tend to support its world view. If it finds new or even ambiguous patterns that undermine or threaten our highly nuanced and memorized patterns, then the limbic system, or “emotional brain,” triggers our threat response mechanism. It prioritizes the memorized pattern and release’s the appropriate stress response hormones, like fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, lust, etc. During stress nothing gets into the frontal lobes for reasoning. Conversely, it is possible to create an optimum learning environment, one that even creates entirely new neural circuits, but only if we learn to switch off our stress mechanism. We must learn how to calm the mind and transcend our emotions through meditation. In order to access the limbic system we must learn to relax our brain’s wave patterns until we are almost, but not quite, asleep.

As people drift between waking and sleeping, their brain waves vary in frequency as they enter what is called the hypnagogic state. A meditator can train to maintain this state for long periods of time during which they are essentially dreaming, while still remaining partially conscious. During this lucid dream state an adept may gain some level of control over his autonomic nervous system, enabling him to slow his heart rate and breathing, etc. With the help of the Dalai Lama, science is busy documenting studies regarding the effects of meditation on man’s physiology. This semi-conscious state enables the meditator to harness the power of his unconscious mind in order to integrate intellectual knowledge into a matrix of expanded neurological circuits, as suggested by recent MRI research.10 Here is how Carl Jung describes the power of dreams and the unconscious mind:

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness... For all ego consciousness is isolated: it separates and discriminates, knows only particulars, and sees only what can be related to the ego. Its essence is limitation ... All consciousness separates, but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of the primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all uniting depths that the dream arises ...11

The great Taoist teacher Chuang Tzu famously said: “Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” It is from this perspective that the well-known scholar Joseph Campbell writes about the origins of myth:

The notion of this universe, its heavens, hells, and everything within it, as a great dream dreamed by a single being in which all the dream characters are dreaming too, has in India enchanted and shaped the entire civilization.12

Campbell echoes Chuang Tzu as he describes the ultimate dreamer, Vishnu:

...floating on the cosmic Milky ocean, couched upon the coils of the abyssal serpent Ananta, the meaning of whose name is “Unending.” In the foreground stand five Pandava brothers ... with Drupadi, their wife: allegorically, she is the mind and they are the five senses. They are those whom the dream is dreaming... Behind them a dream-door has opened, however, to an inward, backward dimension where a vision emerges against darkness. Are these youths, we might ask, a dream of that luminous god, or is the god a dream of these youths?13

Just as modern science describes cause and effect within the material “waking” world, we question the nature of that reality as we delve into the recesses of our own inner, “hidden” world of the unconscious mind. It is there that we integrate our personality, our knowledge, and the events of the day. Meditation gives us “waking” access to our hidden world of dreams, and to what Jung called the “collective unconscious,” mankind’s shared sea of dreams, archetypes, and myths.

A comprehensive history of gnosis (Greek: knowledge) will be presented as a function of the history of mathematics, music and meditation. It offers solutions to the great religious mysteries of all time — mysteries long hidden from the masses — that will unlock the ancient and sacred doors of knowledge and wisdom. This “gnostic hypothesis” will provide us with insight into the ancient methods of acquiring knowledge and wisdom, and put us in a better position to examine our own belief systems, with an unprecedented empirical understanding of God and the cosmos. For the first time, we will be empowered to modernize and revitalize our faith within the context of modern science, and conversely, the science of religion will bring atheists to the doorstep of spirituality.

The reconciliation of science and religion requires a profound common ground that describes verifiable, objective, and scientific truths to which all could subscribe. An informed discussion on this subject can reflect a dynamic between science and religion that is powerful enough to tear down the walls of dogma, bigotry, and exclusivity that separates cultures and religions from one another. History’s divisive sectarian violence and chaos can finally be replaced by a comprehensive framework for interfaith discussion, reconciliation, and peace. Learning the science of religion will teach us the ancient approach to acquiring knowledge and wisdom, and provide us with an entirely new way to read ancient religious and philosophical texts. This will enable us to understand our own holy books, and give peace loving people everywhere the power to wrest control of their faith from the tyranny of fundamentalism that has commandeered its high ground with uninformed teachings. Within this scientific context, mankind’s search for inner and outer peace might even be the tipping point for our survival as a species.