Vedic Science Vs Modern Science II

[This follows the first part - Vedic Science Vs Modern Science I.]

Debunking one such Vedic Science

Here’s one such document on the web. It’s called “Modern Science and Vedic Science: An Introduction” by Kenneth Chandler, from Maharishi International University, Fairfield, Iowa, USA.

Most of these attempts are aimed at mimicking scientific documents by using similar style but making no sense. Instead of making it simple and easy to understand, these impostors try to make their arguments complicated and complex so that the reader is lost somewhere in between, to resign himself to accept what the author says. Just because someone uses mathematical equations, it doesn’t make it mathematics. Logic, deduction, rational explanation, and other tools of mathematics are also quite necessary. All these tools are completely ABSENT from this attempt. I have taken some quotes from this Vedic Science.

#1 …and which can be explored not only through objective science but through a new technology of consciousness developed by Maharishi.

There is no such a thing called “technology of consciousness”. Technology and consciousness are two completely different fields with almost no overlap. Using such sentences, the author is trying to make you believe that somehow there is technology involved when there is none.

#2 Many thousands of years ago, the seers of the Himalayas discovered, through exploration of the silent levels of awareness, a unified field where all the laws of nature are found together in a state of wholeness.

There is a state of awareness, but there is no such thing called ‘silent level’ of awareness. Notice the heavy jargon. By using such jargon again and again they like to confuse the reader into believing that it is some serious topic.

#3 This unity of nature was directly experienced to be a self-referral state of consciousness which is unbounded, all-pervading, unchanging, and the self-sufficient source of all existing things.

This is what these pseudo-science people do. They like to invent new words, sentences and terminology. What is ‘self-referral state of consciousness’? Its all hocus pocus and mumbo jumbo packaged in nice words.

More such hocus pocus terminology is given below (4A-4I), you can skip them if you want to:

#4A They experienced and gave expression to the self-interacting dynamics through which this unified field sequentially gives rise to the diversity of all laws of nature. That experience is expressed in the ancient Vedic literature.

#4B The technology for gaining access to the unified field is called the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, and the science based on this experience, which links modern science and Vedic Science in a single unified body of knowledge, is called the Science of Creative Intelligence.

#4D They perceived the fine fabric of activity, as Maharishi explains it, through which this unity of pure consciousness, in the process of knowing itself, gives rise sequentially to the diversity of natural law and ultimately to the whole of nature.

#4E The ancient Vedic literature, as Maharishi interprets it, expresses in the sequence of its flow and the structure of its organization, the sequence of the unfoldment of the diversity of all laws of nature out of the unified field of natural law.

#4G Gaining intimate familiarity with the silence of pure consciousness, Maharishi holds, one gains the ability to experience within that silence an eternal "fabric" or "blueprint" of all laws of nature that govern the universe, existing at the unmanifest basis of all existence.

# 4I One of Maharishi's most important contributions to Vedic scholarship has been his discovery of the Apaurusheya Bhashya , the "uncreated commentary" of the Rig Veda , which brings to light the dynamics by which the Veda emerges sequentially from the self-interacting dynamics of consciousness.

In all the above statements, there is a heavy dose of newly constructed jargon, which tends to make people believe that it is indeed something serious, such as science itself. Pseudo-sciences like to pass on themselves as science by using sophisticated terminology. Just by emulating scientific documents and its usage terminology, a pseudo-science cannot become science. However, this tactic seems to go on well with some ‘educated’ folks! Notice how the author keeps repeating the same terms, like, sequential, self-interacting, dynamics, unmanifest, unfoldment, silence, etc? By repeating such terms hundred times, they wish to pass their hocus pocus as truth. Can anyone tell me what ‘unmanifest’ and ‘unfoldment’ means?

#5 The knowledge of this ancient science that Maharishi has brought to light is known as Maharishi's Vedic Science.

Didn’t Vedic science reveal all truths already? If so, how can Mr. Maharishi take credit for it?

#6 Maharishi's Vedic Science is to be understood, first of all, as a reliable method of gaining knowledge, as a science in the most complete sense of the term.

First, you don’t even prove it is science. Second, you ask for faith in this system. Isn’t this how religions are dictated? “First, you believe, then, we reveal the truth?”

#8 Maharishi's work in founding Vedic Science is very much steeped in that ancient tradition, but his work is also very much imbued with the spirit of modern science and shares its commitment to direct experience and empirical testing as the foundation and criteria of all knowledge. For this reason, and other reasons to be considered below, it is also appropriately called a science.

So, we have come to conclusion that it is indeed science, through sheer leap of faith. No scientific argument is provided in the above deduction, but somehow we have arrived at the conclusion that this Maharishi’s work is in fact a science.

#9 This experience was not, Maharishi asserts, on the level of thinking, or theoretical conjecture, or imagination, but on the level of direct experience, which is more vivid, distinct, clear, and orderly than sensory experience„perhaps much in the same way that Newton or Einstein, when they discovered the laws of universal gravitation or special relativity, enjoyed a vivid experience of sudden understanding or a kind of direct "insight" into these laws.

This is where it becomes sheer nonsense. First he says that this method is based on gaining knowledge through “exploration of consciousness”, which we have no clue what it means. Next, he says that this experience is not theoretical or based in imagination, but is direct experience, more orderly, distinct and clear than the sensory experience. I don’t know what more direct experience than a sensory experience is.

Then he goes onto say it is very much similar to what Newton or Einstein went through. ‘Hmm... really?’ The only common element between this hocus-pocus and science is imagination- one is seeped in fantasy while the other is in understanding the universe as perceived by direct senses. While Einstein and Newton may have applied their minds to conjecture and imagination, they actually went back to their notebooks and blackboard to actually prove their conjectures through rigor, which had direct bearing on the observed universe! Their theories were verified hundreds of times and have proven to be standing true to the observed universe.

#11 All knowledge of the Veda is contained implicitly even in the first syllable "Ak" of the Rig Veda , and each subsequent expression of knowledge elaborates the meaning inherent in that packet of knowledge through an expanded commentary.

Hmm... What does this mean really- knowledge is contained implicitly? Is knowledge implicit? Can it be contained in one syllable? What is packet of knowledge? Is there a limit to utter depravity in using sophisticated language? The gobbledygook continues:

#14 Modern experimental science and Maharishi's Medic Science could now be seen as two diverse yet mutually complementary approaches to knowing the same underlying reality - one through the empirical method, the other through the exploration of the least excited state of consciousness.

This is how Vedas dismiss empiricism as an artificial construct of the West. All they need to send rockets into space is ‘excited state of consciousness’!

#15 The unity of nature is not a mere hypothetical unity, nor a unity of intellectual understanding or interpretation. It is a unity of direct experience that has been described in almost every tradition and every historical epoch.

#17 This global influence of coherence generated through the group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field has been called the "Maharishi Effect."

And all the references to this technology are made to their own works, which nobody knows other than Maharishi and his sycophants.

Well, you get the point. The whole text is the repetition of the same thing. Using the same previously-undefined words, terminology and new constructs, they keep on harping on achieving one goal: How Vedas reveal the answers concluded from Modern Science and how spirituality and some kind of deep meditation will give you the same answers as Modern Science.

There is no merit to such attempts. Such attempts are pastimes of charlatans, scam artists, and pretenders. There is no science in such attempts. There is a strong and urgent need to discredit such attempts and show them what they are- a sham and a deception. Instead of investing in learning science, inculcating rational outlook and thought, conducting research and experimentation, developing credible and verifiable theories, we are taking a step backward by encouraging such lazy and escapist attempts.

What is worrying is that many academicians, technologists, and elite of India are embracing such attempts. Such supporters are creeping into the bastions of intelligentsia and academia, holding key positions to be an influence on what our kids and future generations will learn.

Related Topics: Vedas and Science, Decline of Science in India II, Astrology Vs Science I, Pseudo-science: Vaastu Shastra, Science and Mythology: Ram Sethu, ABC of Ram Sethu,Rejection of Rationality I: Indian Hindus and the New Age