Science Vs Enightenment ( What Brings You Closer To The Truth? )

[Electron]

I have always been a nerd, I realized a couple years ago that I was deeply interested to know and decode the mystery of this reality through physics. But I somehow bumped into Leo's meditation videos and started practicing meditation. It was something really new to me and it felt really good so I eventually became obsessed with it. Now i have almost practiced it for an year. The problem is, it has started affecting my ego driven purpose, my obsession with the so called greatness is fading away, and I work significantly less than I used to. Its not like I've become lethargic or anything, its just that I am able to see that science has limits, and its not ever going to give me anything beyond those limits, which in a sense what I truly want from science. I am unable to comprehend it thoroughly, but I'm too scared to get away from the thing I always felt like I am here to do. 

Edited February 10, 2016 by Sigma

[jjer94]

Hello Sigma,

I can relate wholeheartedly, as before pursuing enlightenment I had the dream of becoming a researcher. I thought science had all the answers. And then I discovered its limits, as you say, and really started to hate it. That's when I started to see my egoic reasons for pursuing biology: I wanted the image of a mad scientist, I wanted to be the next Frankenstein engineering a new lifeform and receiving a noble prize, I wanted the recognition. It felt as though I was wearing someone else's clothes when I was doing research, and they didn't fit and stank to high heaven. 

I'm not asking you to stop pursuing science. What I'm asking you to do is to re-examine whether pursuing science is an authentic desire or an ego-driven desire. Is the reason you're pursuing it because you want the recognition, the 'greatness'? You will know if the desire is authentic if you can't come up with any reason why you'd want to pursue other than it being fun or you just feel moved to do it. Here's a good check to see if the desire is authentic: If you were the last man on earth, would you still pursue scientific study? 

As an aside, you may also want to re-examine your belief that you were sent to this Earth to pursue science.

Listen to that little bastard in your head that only wants authenticity in your life and would do anything, even face fear, to have it. What does it want?

 

[Electron]

I wouldn't deny that there are no egoistic reasons involved in this pursuit. But I want to know what the reality is, that's what I am sure about. Nature has always fascinated me. I have strong urges to reason, contemplate, and study different aspects of the world that surrounds me. It has changed my entire way of life. On the other side, what meditation made me realize is that I myself is not that prior to the other things in the perception. The self and its rigorous ways started to look obsessive and boring. Why, I reasoned, do I stay 24 hrs with myself, after all, I don't belong to myself. What I still don't get it is whether even the authentic self is full of ego? I would claim that it is.

[Pierre]

Well Sigma, I have great news for you! You don't need to choose between science and meditation because, contrary to what most people think, science has a great spiritual value. It shows how everything is interconnected and that all separations are only conceptual. It leads to an ego-less sense of wonder before the immensity of time and space, the complexity of our body, the mysteries of the infinitely small. In all this there is no place for an absurdly pretentious abstract self. So please don't give up your passion, dig deeper and let science explode your delusions!

[Neo]

We don't want literal explosions in that lab Sigma.

[jjer94]

I think you're confused as to what the authentic self really is. I posted this on another thread, but I think it applies here:

Quote: "I want to reach enlightenment. I want to know the Truth. But I also want to find my authentic "self" and self-actualize. Sometimes it feels as if the two contradicts one another. I want to be really social, outgoing, energetic, motivated and all of that, and I'm on my way to become exactly who I want to be."

When you discover the Truth, it's not that you won't be able to find your authentic self. You realize that your authentic self never existed. And from that clear-seeing, what's authentic within you will naturally arise. The authentic self arises when the notion of an authentic self or the ideal of what you should be is removed. I don't know if you watched Leo's video on free will, but what I say will make much more sense.

Imagine your whole life that you've been sailing the Atlantic Ocean with your dog, using your tiller to guide the boat through the sea. Then a storm hits, and you don't know if you'll survive. Oddly enough, you look down at the tiller and realize that there was no rudder the whole time. You've been pretending that you're steering the boat this whole time, when you had no control over where the boat went whatsoever, and you suffered because you believed you had control. But now, in the storm, seeing that you had no control the whole time, you surrender completely to the whims of the boat...and make it out of the storm. 

Now that you realize the boat's been steering itself, you release the tiller. The sailing becomes enjoyable again, and it goes wherever it wants to go. That is authentic sailing.

Now imagine that the sailboat is your body, and your hand on the tiller is ego, who you think you are. Release the tiller completely, and the body steers itself, free of any self-agendas. That is what Leo refers to as "authentic self". 

  Quote: "So if I discover the Truth, how will the external circumstances be? Since I'll basically realize I don't exist, won't I become sort of ignorant and think "whatever... I'm already everything and nothing, I'm perfect" so I won't expand anymore externally. Or will it actually help in becoming more "self"-actualized and improve all of those things I mentioned before? How will people perceive me? Will confidence be a non-issue, or will it not be any issue of any kind cuz' it just won't matter to me?"

The Truth is unrelated to external circumstances; it's always there. But once you discover Truth, you realize you never had any control, like in the boat analogy above. You no longer operate in fear, as you're doing right now, and instead let the body do its thing. Yes, at a fundamental level, you are already perfect, but the body still keeps going. Why? No reason anymore. It does things just out of the pure joy of living. And it does them authentically. It does whatever its moved to do. If that means becoming a monk, it'll do that. If that means becoming a rockstar, it'll do that. If that means doing a silly dance, it'll do that too. Examine how babies operate, how spontaneous they are, and that gives you a general idea of what post-enlightenment is like. 

Something tells me you're looking at enlightenment with an air of hope, expecting it to be the cure of all your problems. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. Enlightenment brings all of your problems up to the surface, where you have to face each and every one of them. The question you may want to ask yourself is: Am I willing to run towards my fears rather than away from them?

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Sigma said:

... its just that I am able to see that science has limits, and its not ever going to give me anything beyond those limits, which in a sense what I truly want from science.

No real problem Sigma.  There can still be a great career in science researching and demonstrating its limitations; but also discovering how science is a great benefit to the world of apparent reality in which we all find ourselves experiencing life.

Science deals with relative truth.   Meditation seeks to reveal the illusion of relative truth.  Science's truth is relative by definition, if we consider that all the data that is used for science is "interpreted" information.  It is data recieved by the 5 sensory organs.   What is the thing you see, other than the energy of reflected light falling on the retina and registering in the visual cortex at the back of the brain?  Did you see a tree, or a star? Really?  How does anyone know? 

There are agreements of collective consciousness that have been established and conditioned over millennia.  These agreements impinge on the intuitive sense (therefore not always accurate, especially when emotions mingle with intuition) and are the basis of giving sensory data meaning that we have accepted as a species.  So there is much to look at in depth.   Science uses data that is related to these sensory interpretations. 

This is relative truth.  It can change when understanding of sensory data changes in personal consciousness.  Current science work is done by "personal consciousness" which is limited personal beliefs and concepts.  Concepts change, theories change.  Albert Einstein had a heck of a time trying to convince the physics community of his "Theory of Relativity".   The paradigm established by Newton was hard to give up.   They finally conceded, years later, that Newtonian physics had its place and value, and that in fact the "Theory of Relativity" does extend the horizons of scientific perception of the phenomenal world. 

Science deals in phenomena.  This is limited and relative truth.   Noumena is in the direction of really "thinking outside the box".

joy

 

[Electron]

@walt Yeah I agree, all of the theories we have about the reality are mere insights. We tend to think of it as something objective ignoring the fact that the reality exists just because we do. 

[Electron]

1 hour ago, jjer94 said:

I think you're confused as to what the authentic self really is. I posted this on another thread, but I think it applies here:

Quote: "I want to reach enlightenment. I want to know the Truth. But I also want to find my authentic "self" and self-actualize. Sometimes it feels as if the two contradicts one another. I want to be really social, outgoing, energetic, motivated and all of that, and I'm on my way to become exactly who I want to be."

When you discover the Truth, it's not that you won't be able to find your authentic self. You realize that your authentic self never existed. And from that clear-seeing, what's authentic within you will naturally arise. The authentic self arises when the notion of an authentic self or the ideal of what you should be is removed. I don't know if you watched Leo's video on free will, but what I say will make much more sense.

Imagine your whole life that you've been sailing the Atlantic Ocean with your dog, using your tiller to guide the boat through the sea. Then a storm hits, and you don't know if you'll survive. Oddly enough, you look down at the tiller and realize that there was no rudder the whole time. You've been pretending that you're steering the boat this whole time, when you had no control over where the boat went whatsoever, and you suffered because you believed you had control. But now, in the storm, seeing that you had no control the whole time, you surrender completely to the whims of the boat...and make it out of the storm. 

Now that you realize the boat's been steering itself, you release the tiller. The sailing becomes enjoyable again, and it goes wherever it wants to go. That is authentic sailing.

Now imagine that the sailboat is your body, and your hand on the tiller is ego, who you think you are. Release the tiller completely, and the body steers itself, free of any self-agendas. That is what Leo refers to as "authentic self". 

  Quote: "So if I discover the Truth, how will the external circumstances be? Since I'll basically realize I don't exist, won't I become sort of ignorant and think "whatever... I'm already everything and nothing, I'm perfect" so I won't expand anymore externally. Or will it actually help in becoming more "self"-actualized and improve all of those things I mentioned before? How will people perceive me? Will confidence be a non-issue, or will it not be any issue of any kind cuz' it just won't matter to me?"

The Truth is unrelated to external circumstances; it's always there. But once you discover Truth, you realize you never had any control, like in the boat analogy above. You no longer operate in fear, as you're doing right now, and instead let the body do its thing. Yes, at a fundamental level, you are already perfect, but the body still keeps going. Why? No reason anymore. It does things just out of the pure joy of living. And it does them authentically. It does whatever its moved to do. If that means becoming a monk, it'll do that. If that means becoming a rockstar, it'll do that. If that means doing a silly dance, it'll do that too. Examine how babies operate, how spontaneous they are, and that gives you a general idea of what post-enlightenment is like. 

Something tells me you're looking at enlightenment with an air of hope, expecting it to be the cure of all your problems. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. Enlightenment brings all of your problems up to the surface, where you have to face each and every one of them. The question you may want to ask yourself is: Am I willing to run towards my fears rather than away from them?

You are right, I never really pondered into the fact that I have never been living this life, Life was just happening by itself all this time. Thanks for guiding me..!!