Harry Terhanian.com

Once a student asked his teacher, “Who am I? I want to know the truth.”

The teacher pointed to the student’s hand and asked, “Whose hand is this?”

The student was surprised. He answered, “It is I mine!”

The teacher pointed to his head and asked, “Whose head it this?”

The student said, “Of course, it is mine!”

After pointing to many parts of the body of the student and receiving the same answer, the teacher said, “Every part of the body I pointed to, you claim to be yours, but I ask you now, “Where are you?”

The student was perplexed. He realized that whatever part of his body the teacher pointed to, whether inside or outside the body, he would be obliged to answer , “It belongs to me.” Therefore, he could not say that he is the body. Just as he could not say that he is the house or the car or the clothes. He realized he may own many things, but he can still be different than those things.

All the things that the student claimed to be his could be lost or taken away from him or become obscured to his mind due to sleep or unconsciousness. Still, he would continue to exist. He pondered the thought that even in an unconscious state like a coma he could continue to exist. He began to wonder that death may only be a state of unconsciousness. So even if his body dies, he may continue to exist, but without consciousness.

He spoke to the teacher. “I understand now that I am not this body.
Whether I am awake, sleeping or in a coma, I continue to exist. But what happens if I die? Is death like a coma or deep sleep? Or do I cease to exist when my body dies? Do I exist separate from my body?
The student was perplexed.

The teacher asked, “How many times have you changed your body in your life?”

The student was surprised by the question. He said, “I have always had the same body.”

The teacher replied, “The truth is you have changed your body many times in your life. Think about it.” You were in your mother’s womb as a fetus. Your were pushed out by contractions as a baby. You grew into a little boy, an adolescent, a man. You will continue perhaps to become middle aged, then old age and finally death. At every stage of your growth and aging you changed your body, but you remain the same person who witnesses the changes.”

“Your body is a collection of atoms, molecules, chemicals, etc., which appear, and disappear, but you have remained the observer of all the changes of your body. Obviously, you are different than your body. Where is the body you had in the womb of your mother, Where is the body you had as a baby, as a boy, as an adolescent. All those bodies have died long ago, but you are still alive and continuing to observe the changes because you have not died. Death will be the final change of your body in this life because, as a material thing, it will be worn out and not able to function properly anymore. But you will continue to exist and, if you are not self-realized, you will receive a new material body that will again go through the same cycle as your previous body: namely, birth, old age, disease and death.”

“The following information is necessary to understand this cycle of birth and death. Beside a gross body made of earth water, fire, air and space, you also have a subtle body made of mind, intelligence and ego. You can experience this when you sleep. Your gross body sleeps, but you may continue to dream in your mind and experience so many things that seem just as real as when you are awake.”

“The subtle body does not die when your gross body dies. It is very durable and functions as the vehicle that carries your eternal soul from one gross material body to another.”

“The eternal soul is covered by two bodies, one gross and the other subtle. We can understand what the gross body is, but the subtle body needs some clarification. The subtle body is different than the soul. The subtle body is made of mind, intelligence and false ego.
The mind is considered the sixth sense because it receives information from the other five sense, which are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. The mind stores the information received from the five senses like the memory of a computer. The intelligence is the faculty to discern or differentiate the information of the senses into good and bad, amusing, painful, etc. It refers to the power to analyze things in their proper perspective. The proper use of intelligence is to understand what is spirit and what is matter. Such discernment by intelligence results in spiritual knowledge or knowing the distinction between matter and spirit. Mundane knowledge that one may obtain in the university pertains only to matter.”

“Above the intelligence is the false ego, which is defined as the impression that “I am a product of material nature.” This false belief is validated by mundane education which teaches the theory of chemical evolution. This theory states that living entities arose from a collection of chemical substances through a progressive series of chemical reactions. This theory began to gain acceptance after the German scientist, Friedrich Wöhler, successfully synthesized for the first time an organic compound (urea) from inorganic reactants. He is quoted as saying, ‘I cannot, so to say, hold my chemical water and must tell you that I can make urea without thereby needing to have kidneys, or anyhow, an animal, be it human or dog.’ The chemical evolution theory developed after Wöhler because he demonstrated that an organic chemical can be produced starting with inorganic chemicals. Nearly two hundreds years later, no scientists has been able to produce a living being from chemicals even though scientists can make many organic chemicals.”

“The existence of a false ego implies that there is a real ego. The real ego is identifying oneself with the eternal soul and not with the temporary material body. When one understands that my soul is the eternal servant of God, one has purified consciousness and acts with real ego that directs the purified intelligence and mind to use the body and all material things uniquely in the service of God.”

“The ego is the self identity called “I am.”

“False ego identifies oneself as ‘I am the controller and enjoyer of all I survey. I am a product of matter.’ The two psychic divisions of this material consciousness or false ego are ‘I am the creator, and I am the enjoyer.’”

“The real ego is manifested when one has purified consciousness. ‘I am not the creator or enjoyer,’ is realized knowledge. ‘My real position is to be a cooperator with the original creator and enjoyer, God. I am part and parcel of God, just as a part of the body cooperates with the body, or the part of a machine cooperates with the whole machine. The Supreme Lord is the enjoyer and creator, and I, as a subordinate, am meant to cooperate to satisfy the Lord. Such cooperation is in my best interest.’”

“As long as one is not free of the false ego, the intelligence functions in the wrong concept that matter is all in all and manipulation or control of matter for temporary pleasures is the goal of life. This illusory concept contaminates the world view of the living entity. One can spend their whole life attempting to control and enjoy the temporary matter for sense enjoyment.”

“One develops strong attachments to temporary material things and relationships. Such strong attachments engender feelings of love and hate, happiness and sadness and many more dual feelings that further entangle and confuse the person.”

“Such entanglement is a result of the false ego and the reactions one experiences due to the laws of material nature or karma. These reactions are experienced as sickness, pain, mental disturbance, anxiety, stress, nervousness, disabilities, legal problems, poverty, natural disasters, political, economic, social problems, etc.
All of the above are unnecessary, but they are experienced as long as one is under the influence of the false ego.”

“Some false teachers put forward the theory that the ego must be destroyed or eliminated to achieve spiritual emancipation. This is also a false concept because the soul is eternal and the real ego cannot be destroyed. The false ego can be purified, but real ego cannot be destroyed.”

“Therefore, the subtle body made of mind, intelligence and false ego will continue to carry the eternal soul from one temporary gross body to another until the false ego, intelligence and mind are purified. When the subtle body is purified, it functions as the vehicle to liberate the soul from material entanglement. Using the mind, intelligence, the senses and the body in the service of God will liberate a person from the cycle of birth and death. By remembering God at the moment of death will free the soul to return to the spiritual world in its spiritual form as the eternal servant of God.”

The student was thrilled by the teacher’s explanation. He needed time to assimilate all the information. He realized he wanted to ask more questions to the teacher to understand how to specifically purify the false ego. He already understood that theoretical knowledge is practically useless without practical experience that leads to realized knowledge.

Oureehseen ahck-kuh kehzee louiyss chee dahr

We cannot see with the eyes of others

This proverb implies we must develop the skills to think for ourselves and see or analyze life situations correctly without always depending on others. It doesn’t mean we cannot take advise from others. It makes the point that we must develop the personal ability to understand life and make decisions based on our powers of discrimination once we have been trained to do so correctly.

gehnsahpahnoutiahn ousoumnehr

Many lessons can be learned by observing fish, birds, reptiles and animals. They have traits and habits that are similar to human beings. Humans and animals eat, sleep, mate and defend. They go through the same six stages of life as humans, namely, they are born, grow, maintain themselves, produce by-products, dwindle, and die. Their bodies are endowed with senses by which they perceive the world around them. Many manifest social behavior such as living in groups with dominant males or females. They constantly struggle for existence against natural predators and forces of nature.

It is no surprise that all creatures have varying degrees of sense perception. Humans have five highly developed senses: eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. Lower creatures than humans usually have one sense that is more evolved than the other four. The one highly developed sense can often cause a fatal consequence for the creature. The following examples will demonstrate the perilous nature of a developed sense without the balance of thoughtful intelligence.

Deer have sensitive ears and nose. They can hear sounds and pick up scent from far away. Hunter’s use a special deer horn to mimic the sounds of does or bucks. Deer make different grunts especially in their mating season. The hunter makes the grunt sounds with the horn which bring the deer in range to be shot. Sometimes deer are also transfixed by hearing the sweet sound of music and their attentive hearing makes them a target of hunters.

The moth has very sensitive eyes. It can become disoriented by seeing a bright light at night or a fire. As it moves closer to the light of the fire, its delicate wings are burned and it falls into the flames.

Fish like to eat tasty bites of flesh, insects or worms floating in the water. They scavenge the water seeking anything they can gulp down. The fisherman baits a hook with a real worm or a colorful lure that tricks the fish into taking a bite and getting caught on the hook.

Honey bees seek out nectar from plants. They are attracted by the fragrance of a flower. A bee enters a fragrant lotus flower and gets trapped in it when the flower closes its petals at sunset.

A mighty elephant wandering at will in the forest gets caught when tempted with a female decoy elephant kept in a specially constructed enclosure. Once in the enclosure to mate with the female, the elephant is trapped and gradually domesticated. By the touch of a female elephant the male is caught.

The deer are sensitive to sound, the moth to light, fish to taste, honeybees to fragrance and elephants to touch. Because of one highly developed sense perception each of the above animals is trapped or killed. How much more vulnerable is a human being who possesses five sensitive senses.

There is a very instructive verse in the Bhagavad-gita on this subject. “As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man’s intelligence.” (Bg 2.67) If one highly developed sense of an animal can lead to its capture or death, then what can we say of human beings who have five developed senses and the mind which is considered the sixth sense. It is very easy for a person to be distracted by one or more of his senses. There are many unfortunate examples of human entrapment.

A honeytrap is a scheme in which a victim is lured into a compromising sexual situation to provide an opportunity for blackmail. A US Marine, Clayton J. Lonetree was a guard at the US Embassy in Moscow in the early 1980’s. He was seduced by a female KGB operative, who was already working at the US Embassy as a translator. He allowed her to wander the corridors of the Embassy unsupervised late at night. When Lonetree was transferred to Vienna, his lover threatened to expose their affair and blackmailed him into handing over detailed plans of the US Embassy in Moscow as well as information about CIA operatives and working practices in the Soviet Union. By 1987, the CIA became aware that there was a major security breach at the Embassy. After an investigation, Clayton J. Lonetree became the first ever member of the US Marine Corps to be tried for espionage and was sentenced by a military court in Quantico, Virginia to thirty years in prison.

For a successful human life, one needs to restrain the senses from unbridled attachment to sense objects. It is not possible to stop attraction to sense objects. One can, however, use one’s intelligence to understand the consequences of attachment to sense objects and develop the power to restrain oneself.

Attachment to the objects of the senses that leads to lusty desires to own and control them for sense gratification is the cause of entanglement and adverse reactions or the “honeytrap effect.” The senses and the mind cannot be stopped from being attracted to sense objects. One can engage all the senses and the mind in the service of Krishna or God. The art of spiritual engagement under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master is the best way to control oneself from becoming victimized by the forces of nature.

The following Bible passage emphasizes the importance of following God’s instructions and at the same time developing genuine love for Him. A true lover of God will do their best to spread the glories of the Lord. The rules are necessary, but without love of God they remain only moral codes.

“So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:19–20

How can righteousness go beyond that of experts in the law? It is only possible by cultivating a personal relationship, a faith commitment to Jesus or the teacher who represents the word of God in action. That is something the scribes and Pharisees did not have and could not offer. Only those who have such a relationship, and the transformed heart that goes with it, will enter the kingdom of heaven according to the above passage.

For those who simply follow the law, it is always possible to succumb to temptation and fall from the righteous path. Lord Krishna says, “The senses are so strong and impetuous, O Arjuna, that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a man of discrimination who is endeavoring to control them. One who restrains his senses, keeping them under full control, and fixes his consciousness upon Me, is known as a man of steady intelligence.” (Bg 2.60,61) Without the personal relationship with God or His representative it is impossible to fully control the senses.

The controlled mind is the best friend and the mind out of control is the worst enemy. The mind is an instrument that is meant to be controlled. The uncontrolled mind serves the dictations of lust, anger, greed, illusion, etc. The controlled mind voluntarily follows the instructions of Personality of Godhead, who is present in the heart of every living entity. One develops a rapport with God by heeding His advice as reveled in scripture.

Genuine yoga practice such as pure bhakti yoga or the yoga of love and devotion awakens one’s awareness of God’s presence in the heart. By practicing bhakti yoga, complete surrender to following the instructions of the Lord comes naturally. Lord Krishna instructs Arjuna, his devotee, “Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your works unto Me, with full knowledge of Me, without desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship, and free from lethargy, fight. Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching faithfully, without envy, become free from the bondage of fruitive actions.” (Bg 3. 30,31)

A spectacular example of the above descriptions of a self-realized soul is the ancient king named Ambarisa Maharaja. He engaged his mind always meditating on serving the lotus feet of Lord Krishna; during all the hours of the day, he engaged his words in describing the transcendental qualities of the Lord; his hands in cleaning the temple of the Lord; his ears in hearing the nectarine pastimes of the Lord; his eyes in seeing the transcendental forms of the Lord; his body in serving the devotees of the Lord; his nose in smelling the scent of flowers offered to the Lord; his tongue in tasting the Tulasi leaves offered at the lotus feet of the Lord; his legs in going to the temple of the Lord; his head in offering obeisances unto the Lord, and his desires in executing the mission of the Lord. All these activities of devotion are symptoms of a pure devotee of the Lord.

Engaging all the senses in God’s service is possible only when the mind is fixed in constant remembrance of the Lord. The mind and the senses require engagements. Renunciation of material life without positive engagement in the service of the Lord cannot be sustained. It is possible with knowledge to use everything in life in the service of God. By proper training one can practice the principle of dovetailing or engaging oneself and possessions favorably in the service of God. The first step in dovetailing is to know with conviction that everything belongs to God. This conviction frees one from selfish possessiveness. Then one can learn how to accept things that can be favorably used in the service of God and reject things that may be unfavorable. Even the rejected things may also be used later when one has more mature knowledge. For example, killing an animal to eat its flesh is rejected. But, if the animal dies naturally without violence, its flesh can be given to meat eaters who desire to eat it. All people in society can be engaged in the service of God and live peacefully when the principle is to please God by their work.

Shad khntahluh lahtz guh pereh

It is wise not to rejoice too much when there is success and not to lament too much when there is defeat.

Moruk chounem vor khohsguhss zuhspem

Stroking one’s beard is a great way to refrain from speaking when provoked.

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