The Beautiful Duality of Science & Spirituality

 

 “Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn’t easy. I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize. 

To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had to somehow assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you. It’s an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally under-appreciated state known as existence. 

…

Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely—make that miraculously— fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth’s mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result— eventually, astoundingly and all too briefly—in you.”

 

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

***

Before we begin, let’s digest what we just read for a second more. 

 

My mind is still reeling from the precise circumstances it took to get here. Is yours? 

 

Apart from every single variable in the history of time having to line up perfectly and precisely for you to be here today (beginning with the universe forming itself from nothing, the Earth emerging from extremely unstable conditions, noxious elements interacting to eventually create a protective atmosphere and celestial debris bombarding Earth, introducing the new ingredients required to make oceans, land and eventually life) understanding how intricate and precarious our creation is takes you to another level of appreciation. I think that deserves a moment of overwhelming gratitude. 

 

And therein, hidden behind these meticulously formulated facts and hypothesizes, began my lifelong fascination with spirituality.

 

But, wait. How could groundbreaking scientific discovery lead me to travel inward and explore myself in ways that science can’t empirically break down into bits and pieces? Spirituality (word that for some conjures up images of dreadlock, head-banded hippies sitting under a tree, chanting “ohmmmmmm” in tiresome succession) can’t possibly relate to brilliant minded mathematicians and scientists that accept only what can be carefully controlled and tested as the truth. And sure, superficially science and spirituality mingle as well as oil droplets floating in a sea of water. Historically, the two have constantly been at odds with one another since their inceptions. And even today, as many have begun to recognize the convergence between the two, there is still some unsaid rule that if you fully believe in one, you can’t believe in the other. 

 

When I was younger, I didn’t question the relationship between the two. Religion in one bucket, explained the creation of the Earth and mankind in a beautiful harmonic prose, elegantly embedding ethics and morals into the tale. Science in the other bucket, had a more pragmatic approach where math and science ruled. Things didn’t magically spring from nothing because God wanted it to; every single molecule had to be carefully constructed using only the elements available. At this time, I wasn’t conscious of the discord between science and spirituality, nor did I care. I was content with two separate buckets describing different facets of the world. If I wanted to be a better person, refer to religion and spiritualism. If I wanted to understand how things actually work, refer to science. 

 

Though before diving in too far, I think a clarification may be in order. When I discuss spirituality, I do not mean to dive into the topic of religion. To me, it is an unrelated topic in this journey as religion’s parameters involve a concerted effort and a common set of beliefs among a group of people. Spiritualism, as I believe, is a self-awareness that brings you to the core of your deepest self without being clouded by external influences. I believe it is embedded in the heart of every religion but differs in the way that it requires a deeper reflection of one’s self that no one can extract the exact meaning of except for yourself. 

 

I began to understand the difference between spirituality and religion from my mom at a very young age. As my mom explained it, when she was in high school, she and a fellow girlfriend visited a Guru in India that had a profound impact on her. Her first encounter with the Guru consisted of a simple but powerful glance, one she felt had a palpable energy transfer from the Guru to her. She felt such a strong sense of peace and calm for 3 weeks afterwards, that she continued to visit the Guru and learn meditation from him. The sense of peace she attained could only be achieved by self-discovery and meditation. While she still considered herself religious, spiritual meditation allowed her to connect with herself and the world in a deeper way and discover the truth for herself rather than religion dictating it. Like any young girl (or perhaps the lucky ones), I revered my mom for her compassionate and kind heart. I began to understand that meditation played a huge role in shaping who she was and my desire to practice meditation strengthened as I grew up.  

 

The start of my spiritual journey was not a movie-worthy one, where within seconds of closing my eyes I drifted into the cosmos and the universe unveiled its deepest secrets to me. Instead, every time my mom invited me to sit in silence with her and delve into the deepest part of my being, my mind began to drown in a pool of emotions and thoughts. Completely shameless, I even discovered that the best way to figure out my to-do list for the day was pretending to meditate and using a couple minutes of solitude to prioritize my agenda. In my teenage years, my interest in spiritualism waxed and waned. When my mom would explain to me the clarity meditation gave her, I would enthusiastically proclaim my love of meditation. But when it came to execute, my interest waned and I convinced myself that time would be better spent doing tangible things instead of being stuck in my own head.

 

Though throughout my periods of embracing and abandoning spiritualism, my affinity to science became stronger and I regarded it as the highest truth. Yes, spirituality explained creation and the world in the eyes of morality and ethics, but science was tangible and real. You could quantify, measure, test and ultimately discover the root causes of everything. Biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics were all interrelated and explained phenomena our predecessors merely passed off as a godly action. Previously where rain and lightning were signs of the ultimate holy being spiting us, they were now broken down into scientific processes of water evaporating, condensing, gravity causing the rain to fall and lightening forming from charged particles interacting with each other. As my world was expanded with scientific discovery, it was beautiful to me how everything seamlessly fit together like puzzle pieces. Things were making sense in a real way.  

 

But I still hadn’t lost my will to understand spirituality. The more I learned about science, the more the worlds of spiritualism and science started to collide and I found the dissonance between them unsettling. As both revealed different aspects of the world I connected with, I yearned to find a connection between the two and explain how both could coexist. In the end, what ultimately inspired me to devote part of my life to understanding spiritualism and meditating was somewhat unexpected. I picked up an autobiography from my favorite author, Michael Crichton, entitled Travels. Expecting to be inspired by his constant exploration of the world and bravado for pushing the limits in distant corners of the Earth, I didn’t expect to be equally blown away by Crichton’s inwards travels and how his newfound spirituality shaped his life. Crichton, a Harvard trained medical professional, often infused far-out scientific theories into his fiction novels but researched them thoroughly enough to sound plausible (Jurassic Park being a good example). When I read Travels, Crichton’s account of his spiritual journey and eventual conviction in its power astonished me. This was a man who held science in the greatest regard, but his world became stronger once he began to dabble in spiritualism and open himself up to other Eastern practices. Through the eyes of Crichton, I realized that both science and spirituality could coexist peacefully and even symbiotically. 

 

Over the years, I began to read more literature on spiritualism and the art of meditation. I continued to struggle when I actually attempted it, but was determined to understand the practice as much as possible. My own spiritual practice only came to manifestation after I attended a meditation retreat in Phuket, Thailand in the summer of 2015. I was in the midst of my round the world trip when I decided to take time off of traveling and attend a meditation retreat. I wanted to learning meditation in a structured environment and solely focus on honing in the practice in a secluded environment. I felt like I was walking in the footsteps of my hero, Michael Crichton: a man who explored the depths of his inner being with the same passion he had for traveling the depths of the Earth. 

 

I found the location slightly ironic as Phuket was more known for its surreal beaches and party atmosphere. I was intrigued to discover how one town could embody both extremes of the spectrum and soon realized that Phuket had something to offer everybody. The retreat took place at a luxurious sanctuary tucked away in the countryside of Phuket. As soon as I arrived to the retreat’s headquarters, I was briefed about the expectations I should uphold to experience the experience to the fullest capacity. We were told to shut off our phones, abandon any distractions (even books) and not use the internet except in case of emergency. Essentially, when we had time alone, we were left with literally nothing but ourselves. Our meditation group consisted of myself, an Australian couple, an English girl and another American boy from California. It was led by Tobi, a tall and billowing German who dedicated his life to helping people through their spiritual journeys and teaching the practice of meditation.  

 

During next 4 days, we participated in guided meditation sessions and spiritual discourse in the mornings, yoga classes, and solitary time in the afternoon and evening for solo meditation/mindfulness practice. The evenings would conclude with Q&A sessions where Tobi would encourage us to ask questions about meditation and what we were experiencing. We were also provided three detox vegetarian meals a day, to keep us energized with clean and nutritious food. The whole itinerary was carefully constructed to give us a sufficient amount of guidance for learning how to meditate while balancing it with time alone to practice meditation and mindfulness.

 

The morning meditation sessions often took place at various beach lookouts in Phuket. Our views were incredible beachy backdrops while Tobi discussed spiritualism, meditation and how to incorporate these principles in everyday life. Though we had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning (5 AM) to drive to the lookouts, these quickly became my favorite part of the retreat. After arriving and arranging ourselves in a semi-circle around Tobi, we would close our eyes and meditate while Tobi facilitated the session. His voice was so gentle and surreal that even when I meditate today, I imagine him guiding me:

 

“Close your eyes and sit erect with your head in line with the heavens above. Imagine there is a beautiful white light surrounding you, an aura around the confines of your body, pulsating with your every breath. Now imagine a hole on the top of your head where you begin to breathe the light into your head. Feel the warmth of the light and allow it to completely your mind and head. As you breathe the light in, you are taking in all the purity and healing powers of the light. When you exhale, black smoke seeps out of your pores, eliminating all toxins and negativity. Now when you breathe, allow the light to permeate down into your chest and arms, feeling the warm and the purity of the light…”

 

This would continue, as we would breath the healing light into our torso, hips, legs and finally down to the tips of our toes. We would stay in this state for minutes on end for the first 2 days. On the third and fourth day, he progressed past this and guided us into a more transcendent state of mind and what I considered to be a deeper meditation. This would take place over the course of 10-15 minutes:

 

“…The healing light now occupies every part of your body. Feel its warmth with love and compassion and allow it to fill every part of you. Continue to breathe the healing powers in and eliminate the toxins as you exhale. Now allow your body to transform into particles of light and slowly feel the particles of light dissolve into the infinite expanse. Lose awareness of your body and become part of the universe with no boundaries or confines.”

 

Inevitably throughout the silences where I would try to lose awareness of my body, I could still feel mind clinging to Earthly thoughts. Strands of my hair would brush against my cheek in the morning wind or I’d imagine ants crawling on my leg and incessantly scratch against my will. Tobi would gently address this quandary:

 

“As you lose the sensation of your body, envision yourself as infinite as a blue sky. When a thought or emotion emerges, imagine it in a cloud, drifting by. Observe these thoughts and feelings but see them as distant instead of embodying them. You are not your thoughts. You are not an angry person or a sad person. Rather you have angry thoughts or sad thoughts. Put them in a cloud and allow them to drift out of sight.”

 

I would do this any time an irrelevant thought or feeling appeared. It was difficult at first but by the third and fourth day, I began to get the hang of it. It gave me a peace I had never felt before. His description of emotions and thoughts were liberating.  I am not my thoughts. I am not everything my mind tells me I am. I am not an impatient person. Nor am I an angry person. But I do have transient impatient and angry thoughts. I slowly began to disregard things my mind told me as the absolute truth. It was constantly talking, clouding every experience with unnecessary commentary and it was hindering me from achieving peace. But equipped with the knowledge Tobi gave us, I could now watch these thoughts float by in clouds and stay in a blissful equilibrium. 

 

After the guided meditation sessions, Tobi would hold a discourse session and share Buddhist principles to help us understand our experiences and dig deeper into our meditation. These allowed me to realize a self-awareness unattached to my mind and body. I am not my mind but neither am I my body. Tobi, in his ethereal voice would say:

 

“You are not your body. It is just a shell in which you are contained. If I were to shut your body off and tell you that you needed to make it function, to disperse air molecules to your cells, to circulate blood throughout your body, to digest every particle of food you intake, you wouldn’t be able to. Your body works on its own. You are not your body. In contrast, you exist on a level deeper than the physicality of your body.”

 

After echoing this sentiment, he would receive blank and shocked looks from us. While all of us were still processing the profundity of this notion, he’d promptly continue:

 

“Imagine your eyes are a camera, continually broadcasting your life movie. The only person in the audience, however, is your self-awareness, the deepest part of yourself. Because you are not your mind or your body, you can watch things happen at a distance, allowing yourself to detach from these Earthly barriers and achieve a higher sense of self.”

 

His discourses were often teeming with these bewildering notions, completely altering how I saw everything. Another one of my favorites:

 

“In order to gain perspective on your thoughts, you need to distance yourself from them and view them from your deepest self. If someone asked you to read a book and shoved a book directly in front of your eyes, you wouldn’t be able to read it effectively. Instead, you need to hold the book at a slight distance to take it all in. In the same way to gain clarity on the contents of your mind, you need to maintain a slight distance to comprehend them effectively.”

 

And in order to calm and still your mind, he imparted this nugget of wisdom:

 

“If you hold a cup of water with your hands, no matter how hard you try, you cannot make the water go completely still. However, if you set the water on the ground in front of you, you see how easily the rippling water slowly becomes completely still. In your mind, you are unable to fully pacify your thoughts and emotions if you coexist within them. Like setting down the cup of water in front of you to achieve tranquility, you must also step outside your thoughts into your self-awareness to experience a serene mind.”

 

To say in the least, this retreat completely shifted how I viewed everything about my life. Previously, I thought spirituality and religion were contrived ways of looking at the world, teaching you to be a better person and achieve a peaceful bliss that science couldn’t do. But the views he presented were irrefutable and I regarded them as the truth, similarly to how I regarded science. 

 

After the retreat, I reflected on my personal arsenal of knowledge and experience. I was beginning to truly understand spiritualism from practicing it on a daily basis and picked up some books to supplement what I had learned. To my surprise, one book in particular, "The Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer,  explained the science behind memories and perceptions as related to spirituality. It wasn’t until reading his book that it clicked, and I realized a perceptible link between science and spirituality.

 

“The foundations of spiritual growth and personal awakening are very much strengthened by the findings of Western science. Science has shown us how an underlying energy field forms into atoms, which then bind together into molecules, and ultimately manifest into the entire physical universe. The same is true inside of us. All that goes on inside also has its foundation in an underlying energy field. It is the movements in this field that create our mental and emotional patterns as well as our inner drives, urges, and instinctual reactions. Regardless of what you call this inner force field—Chi, Shakti or Spirit—it is an underlying energy that flows in particular patterns through your inner being.” 

 

Singer described elsewhere that when you form a memory, it creates an energy field within you, a series of speed bumps you accumulate as you make more memories. Throughout life, you often experience new moments through filters of your memories and behind the scenes, you are subconsciously connecting the dots between new and old memories. When you recall a memory in order to process unfamiliar information, you pass over these energy fields, or speed bumps, giving you a comfortable filter to ingest anything new. This was another example of explaining how spiritualism was bolstered, rather than undermined, by science. 

 

Drawing together all my experiences and beliefs, I continue to be blown away by the complexities, the beauty and the interconnectedness of everything on this Earth every single day. Many argue that science is stoic, that it breaks everything down into empirical pieces devoid of morality. But I see it completely differently. Understanding how everything works is so insightful that it gives me a whole new perspective on spiritualism. Carl Sagan, a scientist famous for partaking in many facets of the sciences elegantly depicts my sentiments on the perfect duality of spirituality and science: 

 

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual… The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”