Harry Terhanian.com

What is the difference between spiritual science and religion

Religion is a type of faith.

Spiritual science is concerned with verifiable facts that are irrefutable.

The following discussion presents facts of life that are the foundation of scientific spirituality.
These facts point to the commonality of human beings and their unique origin from a personal supreme intelligent being.

1. Every human being regardless of race, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc. experiences birth, old age, disease and death
2. There are six stages of the body: birth, growth, duration of life, producing by-products (children), dwindling, death.
3. All human beings have four fundamental defects: they make mistakes, easily fall into illusion, they have imperfect senses, and have a cheating propensity.
4. All living entities suffer from three types of miseries: miseries of this body, miseries caused by other bodies, and miseries caused by catastrophic events.
5. Every living being eats, sleeps, mates and defends.
6. All humans experience three stages of consciousness: awake, dreaming state and deep sleep.
7. There are four ways a living being can be born: from embryos, eggs, seeds, perspiration.
8. All humans experience time as past, present and future.
9. Everyone is subject to duality in their life such as heat and cold, happiness and distress, rich and poor, honor and dishonor, love and hate, etc.
10. Human beings are always dependent and controlled by superior forces such as time, nature, governments, etc. No person has complete independence. We do not control our digestion, blinking of eyes, breathing, and so many other vital functions of the body as well as vital functions of the universe on which we depend such as the movement of the sun, earth, tides, etc. No one can remember choosing to be born in a particular body or place. All the vital processes of life and different causal situations we find ourselves in are outside our conscious control. This indicates we are in a dependent position at all times.
11. All living bodies subsist on food grains, which are produced from rains. Rains are provided by a process of nature (the sun evaporates water from the ocean and forms clouds which are moved by wind and subtle changes of temperature and pressure that cause the clouds to rain on the land). These processes are not controlled by human beings.

12. There are five gross elements and three subtle elements that constitute the body which can further be expanded to 24. They are:
Earth, water, fire, air, ether (space), mind, intelligence, and false ego
The above eight are expanded in more detail to 24:
Five gross elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether (space)
Five senses for gathering information eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin
Five objects of the information gathering senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching
Five working senses are arms, legs, voice, genital and anus
The mind is the sense within because it receives the information from the other senses and stores them in the memory
The intelligence differentiates the information acquired by the senses and attributes values such as this is good and this is bad, etc.
The false ego wrongly identifies the self with matter
There is an unmanifest stage of matter wherein the time element and the influences of the three qualities that condition every living being no longer act

This is summarized as:
Five gross material elements
Five senses for gathering information
Five objects of the information gathering senses
Five working senses
Mind, intelligence, false ego and the unmanifest stage of matter

These are the twenty four basic components of this world.

The aggregate of these twenty four elements is called the field of activity.

There is also desire, hatred, happiness and distress, which are interactions and may be considered representations of the five great elements in the gross body.

The living symptoms, represented by consciousness and convictions, are the manifestation of the subtle body made up of the mind, intelligence and false ego.

The five great elements are a gross representation of the false ego, which in turn represents the un-manifested stage of the three modes of material nature. The un-manifested modes of material nature are called pradhana.

The body is a representation of all these factors. The body is an impermanent thing.

13. Although animals and humans eat, sleep, mate and defend alike, some humans are more intelligent than animals because they can use their intelligence to understand their factual position in respect to the universe. The following six steps of logical thinking represent superior human intelligence.
1. Like Descartes, one can eliminate everything that one is not sure of its existence. One arrives at the conclusion that I am only sure that I exist because I am able to think.
2. Next, I can understand from the above that there is a difference between the seer
and the seen. I see objects. Therefore, there is a difference between the object I see and myself as the seer. For example, I see my arm. If my arm is detached from my body, I continue to see it even though it is no longer attached to my body. It is obvious that there is a difference between the seer and the seen. Whether my arm is attached to my body or not, I still am the seer and I am different than the object I see.
3. The objects I perceive, the organs I use to perceive and the process of
perception have all been supplied to me. I did not create them, nor do I control or maintain them. Therefore, I am not independent in the process of perception. For example, I use the internet. I did not create the internet, I do not control or own the internet, nor do I understand exactly how the internet works. Yet, I am able to use the internet. My use of the internet depends on many other people and organizations that control it. I am dependent on them to use the internet. The same applies to my ability to perceive.
4. My power of seeing or perception is limited. Every human being is born with four fundamental defects, we make mistakes, we are subject to illusion, our senses are imperfect and we have a cheating propensity. Thus we are conditioned by our body and the forces of nature that influence our body. We are dependent and limited. I cannot see around corners or through walls or at a great distance. I can’t hear radio waves unless I have a radio. I can’t see television waves unless I have a television. My sense are limited. Even with powerful instruments to help me extend my perception, my senses are still limited.
5. The seer is fundamentally different than the seen by virtue of the fact that the seer feels dissatisfaction due to the limitations of conditioned material existence. For example, a golfer is about to putt the golf ball into the hole. He carefully putts but the ball barely misses the hole. He feels dissatisfaction and frustration. The golf ball, however, feels nothing because it does not possess consciousness like the golfer. The consciousness of the golfer expressed by his dissatisfaction at missing the putt indicates that the golfer is different than the golf ball. The golf ball is made of a combination of matter. The golfer is dissatisfied because he has consciousness and the golf ball does not feel dissatisfied because it doesn’t have consciousness. Consciousness is more than a combination of matter. It is not a mere combination of matter. If it was, then the golf ball would also feel dissatisfaction. The golfer’s body like the golf ball is made of material combination, but there is another dimension in the body that is not a product of material combination. That is the consciousness of the golfer. Feelings of love, attachment, dissatisfaction, etc. indicate that a person has a non-material dimension that perceives and feels experiences in the material body.

The fact that consciousness is not a product of material combination is evident at the moment of death. Right before death, a person is still conscious. When the person dies, the body loses consciousness. After death, it becomes evident that consciousness is not merely a combination of matter because the same material body is still present but it is lacking consciousness. Why can’t the doctors revive the body by injecting whatever chemicals are missing? The answer is that consciousness is not a product of material combination. In fact, why don’t scientists carefully measure a body before and right after death to determine what chemicals are missing so that they can inject them into the body of the deceased and revive him? Obviously, they have tried but they cannot succeed in manipulating chemicals to stop death or bring a dead body back to life.

6. Something cannot be animate without an intelligent person behind it. Intelligence gives direction like a higher authority. A living being cannot see or move or eat or do anything without the use of intelligence. Everyone is dependent on their own intelligence or that of a superior being.

For example, a boy purchases a scale model train set. He assembles it at home. He connects the electrical control panel to electricity and begins to enjoy running the train for his enjoyment. The train moves forward or backward and comes to a halt by the will of the boy. The boy did not create the train set. The boy purchased the set that was created and manufactured by other persons who had the superior intelligence to create such a model train set. The boy simply assembled the train set and then enjoys running it according to his will.

There are three things to note: there is matter that can be organized and manipulated, there is the intelligence of an individual living being (the boy in this example), and there is the superior intelligence of the person or persons that conceived and made the train set.

Similarly, there is a superior intelligence that has ordered this world that we live in. Due to the incredible engineering of this world, we are able to function in it and use the many facilities. Like the boy and the train set, or the user of the internet, we do not understand how the world works, but we are able to use it or order a small part of it according to our will. There is the law of gravity, the principles of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, the precise movement of planets, tides, etc., that are perceived and understood by scientists who then proceed to produce different conveyances based on these pre-existing laws. The scientist manifests intelligence to make an airplane or a car with many moving parts. It is evident that there is a superior scientist with superior intelligence that has ordered the universe and is maintaining it in a wonderful way. Without intelligence nothing can move. For example, I purchase all the materials for building a house and then store them on an empty lot ready to build it. I then follow the principles of natural selection, genetic mutation, trial and error and random combination and permutation and hope that my house will be built by chance. Do you think the house will be built on my plot of land like I hope it will? Unless there are superior intelligent persons to direct the construction of the house and the workers to do it, it will never be built. It certainly cannot be constructed by the building materials themselves! Matter can only move because of superior intelligence moving and guiding it in a precise way.

We can safely and logically conclude that something cannot be animate without an intelligent person behind it. Therefore, there is a supremely intelligent person behind the entire material creation that is guiding it at every step. Just as there are so many intelligent people in this world guiding and molding matter into many conveyances for their purposes.

Let say I walk into the Microsoft campus and declare that the computer software company began by accident and developed by itself and that no intelligent individual(s)was behind its creation, development and continuation. What do you think the response would be? It is obvious that a psychological evaluation team would be called to determine whether I was a mentally disturbed person making such outrageously false statements out loud. It is obvious if you visit the Microsoft Campus that it was begun, developed and continuously maintained by a group of highly intelligent persons. There is no other explanation for its continued success until today. But Microsoft is insignificant in comparison with the complexity, grandeur, and incredible technology manifest in the universe.

A man is considered crazy to express the thoughts that Microsoft started by accident and is continuing without any intelligent persons ordering and guiding it. Similarly, anyone who claims the universe with its incredible complexity and perfect movements happened by accident and that there is no intelligent superior person behind it, should also be considered even crazy.

The earth revolves on its axis about 1200 miles and hour. The earth also revolves around the sun at about 2000 miles per hour. The sun also revolves on a universal orbit at another speed. All these movements are going on in a synchronized manner. The movements are so perfect that we don’t feel any shaking or discomfort. Due to the exactness of these colossal movements we are able to keep time in a precise way. These movements are ordered and maintained with a regularity that seems mysterious. Is this all going on randomly? Obviously not!

As there is intelligence behind the movement of a car, airplane, bicycle, etc. so there is a superior intelligence behind the movement of the sun, moon, earth and all things.

Conclusion:

Scientific spirituality is a collection of facts that are undeniable for the honest observer. These facts point to the common experience of every human being regardless of their ethnicity, religion, bias, etc. They override any superficial differences that might be postulated by religious beliefs, nationalistic or political rhetoric, and other speculative philosophical thoughts. Ultimately, these verifiable facts indicate that we must seek out specific knowledge of our relationship with the superior intelligent being who is ordering and maintaining the universe and who is the origin of all species of life and varieties of matter.

Difference between spiritual science and religion

Religion is a type of faith.

Spiritual science is concerned with verifiable facts that are irrefutable.

The following discussion presents facts of life that are the foundation of scientific spirituality.
These facts point to the commonality of human beings and their unique origin from a personal supreme intelligent being.

1. Every human being regardless of race, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc. experiences birth, old age, disease and death
2. There are six stages of the body: birth, growth, duration of life, producing by-products, dwindling, death.
3. All human beings have four fundamental defects: they make mistakes, easily fall into illusion, imperfect senses, and have a cheating propensity.
4. All living entities suffer from three types of miseries: miseries of this body, miseries caused by other bodies, and miseries caused by catastrophic events.
5. Every living being eats, sleeps, mates and defends.
6. All humans experience three stages of consciousness: awake, dreaming state and deep sleep.
7. There are four ways a living being can be born: from embryos, eggs, seeds, perspiration.
8. All humans experience time as past. present and future.
9. Everyone is subject to duality in their life such as heat and cold, happiness and distress, rich and poor, honor and dishonor, love and hate, etc.
10. Human beings are always dependent and controlled by superior forces such as time, nature, governments,etc. No person has complete independence. We do not control our digestion, blinking of eyes, breathing, and so many other vital functions of the body as well as vital functions of the universe on which we depend such as the movement of the sun, earth, tides, etc. No one can remember choosing to be born in a particular body or place. All the vital processes of life and different causal situations we find ourselves in are outside our conscious control. This indicates we are in a dependent position at all times.
11. All living bodies subsist on food grains, which are produced from rains. Rains are provided by a process of nature (the sun evaporates water from the ocean and forms clouds which are moved by wind and subtle changes of temperature and pressure that cause the clouds to rain on the land). These processes are not controlled by human beings.

12. There are five gross elements and three subtle elements that constitute the body which can further be expanded to 24. They are:
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego.
The above eight are expanded in more detail to 24:
Five gross elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether (or space)
Five senses for gathering information eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin
Five objects of the information gathering senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching
Five working senses are arms, legs, voice, genital and anus
The mind is the sense within because it receives the information from the other senses and stores them in the memory
The intelligence differentiates the information acquired by the senses and attributes values such as this is good and this is bad, etc.
The false ego wrongly identifies the self with matter
There is an unmanifest stage of matter wherein the time element and the influences of the three qualities that condition every living being no longer acts

This is summarized as:
Five gross material elements
Five senses for gathering information
Five objects of the information gathering senses
Five working senses
Mind, intelligence, false ego and the unmanifest stage of matter

These are the twenty four basic components of this world.

The aggregate of these twenty four elements is called the field of activity.

There is also desire, hatred, happiness and distress, which are interactions and may be considered representations of the five great elements in the gross body.

The living symptoms, represented by consciousness, and convictions are the manifestation of the subtle body made up of the mind, intelligence and false ego.

The five great elements are a gross representation of the false ego, which in turn represents the unmanifested stage of the three modes of material nature. The unmanifested modes of material nature are called pradhana.

The body is a representation of all these factors. The body is an impermanent thing.

13. Although animals and humans eat, sleep, mate and defend alike, some humans are more intelligent than animals because they can use their intelligence to understand their factual position in respect to the universe. The following six steps of logical thinking represent superior human intelligence.
1. Like Descartes one can eliminate everything that one is not sure of its existence. One arrives at the conclusion that I am only sure that I exist because I am able to think.
2. Next, I can understand from the above that there is a difference between
I, the one that perceives, and everything else that I perceive or the seer and the seen. I see objects. Therefore, there is a difference between the object I see and myself as the seer. For example, I see my arm. If my arm is detached from my body, I continue to see it even though it is no longer attached to my body. It is obvious that there is a difference between the seer and the seen. Whether my arm is attached to my body or not, I still am the seer and I am different than the object I see.
3. The objects I perceive, the organs I use to perceive and the process of
perception have all been supplied to me. I did not create them, nor do I control or maintain them. Therefore, I am not independent in the process of perception. For example, I use the internet. I did not create the internet, I do not control or own the internet, nor do I understand exactly how the internet works. Yet, I am able to use the internet. My use of the internet depends on many other people and organizations that control it. I am dependent on them to use the internet. The same applies to my ability to perceive.
4. Our power of seeing or perception is limited. Every human being is born with four fundamental defects, we make mistakes, we are subject to illusion, our senses are imperfect and we have a cheating propensity. Thus we are conditioned by our body and the forces of nature that influence our body. We are dependent and limited. I cannot see around corners or through walls or at a great distance. I can’t hear radio waves unless I have a radio. I can’t see television waves un less I have a television. My sense are limited. Even with powerful instruments to help me extend my perception, my senses are still limited.
5. The seer is fundamentally different than the seen by virtue of the fact that the seer feels dissatisfaction due to the limitations of conditioned material existence. For example, a golfer is about to putt the golf ball into the hole. He carefully putts but the ball barely misses the hole. He feels dissatisfaction and frustration. The golf ball, however, feels nothing because it does not possess consciousness like the golfer. The consciousness of the golfer expressed by his dissatisfaction at missing the putt indicates that the golfer is different than the golf ball. The golf ball is made of a combination of matter. The golfer is dissatisfied because he has consciousness and the golf ball does not feel dissatisfied because it doesn’t have consciousness. Consciousness is more than a combination of matter. It is not a mere combination of matter. If it was, then the golf ball would also feel dissatisfaction. The golfer’s body like the golf ball is made of material combination, but there is another dimension in the body that is not a product of material combination. That is the consciousness of the golfer. Feelings of love, attachment, dissatisfaction, etc. indicate that a person
a non-material dimension that perceives and feels experiences in the material body.

The fact that consciousness is not a product of material combination is evident at the moment of death. Right before death, a person is still conscious. When the person dies, the body loses consciousness. At death, it becomes evident that consciousness is not merely a combination of matter because the same material body is still present but it is lacking consciousness. Why can’t the doctors revive the body by injecting whatever chemicals are missing? The answer is that consciousness is not a product of material combination. In fact, why don’t scientists carefully measure a body before and right after death to determine what chemicals are missing so that they can inject them into the body of the deceased and revive him? Obviously, they have tried but they cannot succeed in manipulating chemicals to stop death.

6. Something cannot be animate without an intelligent person behind it. Intelligence gives direction like a higher authority. A living being cannot see or move or eat or do anything without the use of intelligence. Everyone is dependent on their own intelligence or that of a superior being.

For example, a boy purchases a scale model train set. He assembles it at home. He connects the electrical control panel to electricity and begins to enjoy running the train for his enjoyment. The train moves forward or backward and comes to a halt by the will of the boy. The boy did not create the train set. The boy purchased the set that was created and manufactured by other persons who had the superior intelligence to create such a model train set. The boy simply assembled the train set and then enjoys running it according to his will.

There are three things to note: there is matter that can be organized and manipulated, there is the intelligence of an individual living being (the boy in this example), and there is the superior intelligence of the person or persons that conceived and made the train set.

Similarly, there is a superior intelligence that has ordered this world that we live in. Due to the incredible engineering of this world, we are able to function in it and use the many facilities. Like the boy and the train set, or the user of the internet, we do not understand how the world works, but we are able to use it or order a small part of it according to our will. There is the law of gravity, the principles of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, the precise movement of planets, tides, etc., that are perceived and understood by scientists who then proceed to produce different conveyances based on these pre-existing laws. The scientist manifests intelligence to make an airplane or a car with many moving parts. It is evident that there is a superior scientist with superior intelligence that has ordered the universe and is maintaining it in a wonderful way. Without intelligence nothing can move.
For example, I purchase all the materials for building a house and then store them on an empty lot ready to build it. I then follow the principles of natural selection, genetic mutation, trial and error and random combination and permutation and hope that my house will be built by chance. Do you think the house will be built on my plot of land like I hope it will? Unless there are superior intelligent persons to direct the construction of the house and the workers to do it, it will never by built. It certainly cannot be constructed by the building materials themselves! Matter can only move because of superior intelligence guiding it in a precise way.

We can safely and logically conclude that something cannot be animate without an intelligent person behind it. Therefore, there is a supremely intelligent person behind the entire material creation that is guiding it at every step. Just as there are so many intelligent people in this world guiding and molding matter into many conveyances for their purposes.

Let say I walk into the Microsoft campus and declared that the computer software company began by accident and developed by itself and that no intelligent individual was behind its creation, development and continuation. What do you think the response would be? It is obvious that a psychological evaluation team would be called to determine whether I was a mentally disturbed person making such outrageously false statements out loud. It is obvious if you visit the Microsoft Campus that it was begun, developed and continuously maintained by a group of highly intelligent persons. There is no other explanation for its continued success until today. But Microsoft is insignificant in comparison with the complexity, grandeur, and incredible technology manifest in the universe.

A man is considered crazy to express the thoughts that Microsoft started by accident and is continuing without any intelligent persons ordering and guiding it. Similarly, anyone who claims the universe with its incredible complexity and perfect movements happened by accident and that there is no intelligent superior person behind it, should also be considered crazy.

The earth revolves on its axis about 1200 miles and hour. The earth also revolves around the sun at about 2000 miles per hour. The sun also revolves on a universal orbit at another speed. All these movements are going on in a synchronized manner. The movements are so perfect that we don’t feel any shaking or discomfort. Due to the exactness of these colossal movements we are able to keep time in a precise way. These movements are ordered and maintained with a regularity that seems mysterious. Is this all going on randomly? Obviously not!

As there is intelligence behind the movement of a car, airplane, bicycle, etc. so there is a superior intelligence behind the movement of the sun, moon, earth and all things.

Conclusion

Scientific spirituality is a collection of facts that are undeniable for the honest observer. These facts
point to the common experience of every human being regardless of their ethnicity, religion, bias, etc.
They override any superficial differences that might be postulated by religious beliefs, nationalistic or political rhetoric, and other speculative philosophical thoughts. Ultimately, these verifiable facts indicate that we must seek out specific knowledge of our relationship with the superior intelligent being who is ordering and maintaining the universe and who is the origin of all species of life and
varieties of matter.

To be continued