Consciousness Is Contagious
They should go hand in hand, but you have to understand that neither science can become meditative nor meditation can become just science. They are two dimensions of human existence. A man can be both: he can be a scientist in his lab, and he can be a meditator in his home. While he is meditating, he has to forget all about science; while he is doing scientific research, he has to forget all about meditation. Only then can they go hand in hand.
There are very complex and subtle problems in it. The problem is that science has to be objective and meditation has to be subjective.
Science can experiment; in meditation you cannot experiment, you can only experience.
In science the method is observation; in meditation the method is witnessing. And there is a great difference.
Science has an object before it. It can dissect it, it can find out what it is constituted from, it can go to the very roots – to molecules, to atoms, to electrons, to protons. It can go on dissecting to find the ultimate stratum. But in meditation there is no object; there is a subjectivity.
Let me say it differently: in science, the scientist is working with something; in meditation he is working with his own being – he cannot cut it, he cannot dissect it. Who will cut it? Who will dissect it? He is it. Who will observe? He is it.
So if this is understood – that science and meditation have opposite directions to move; one moves outwards, one moves inwards – they need not be enemies. They can go hand in hand because it is the scientist in which they both meet. The scientist has to be alert not to mix them; he has to be alert that in scientific research he remains objective and in meditation he forgets all objectiveness and just becomes a pure subject, a silent witness.
In the scientist is the meeting point. And it has to happen if we are going to save humanity.
Twenty-five centuries ago in Greece there were many mystery schools. Are you a mystic? Please tell us about your mystery school.
You do not understand the word mystery or the word mystic or the phenomenon of a mystic or a mystery school. If anything can be said about them, they are no longer mystic.
A mystic is one who knows but cannot say it. He can live it; you can look into his eyes, you can look into his gestures, you can feel it in his presence, but there is no way to say it. It does not mean that the mystic remains silent. Many mystics have remained silent for the simple reason that everything you say falls short; the essential thing that you wanted to say is not contained in the words. When you hear your own words you know that which you wanted to convey is not conveyed. So many mystics have remained silent.
A few mystics have chosen to speak because it is possible not to say it directly, but to create a situation through words in which it is indicated indirectly.
Excerpted From Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries CH: 25
