In this set of 4 Zoom Webinars we will explore not what gets dogmatically classified as ‘science’ or as ‘religion’. The emphasis will be more on the goals, intentions, attitudes and practices of the people engaged in scientific research or spiritual search. The purpose of spiritual search is a radical transformation of the searchers in order for them to be free of their egoistic self for discovering their essential unity with the Highest Reality variously called God, Brahman, Absolute or simply That.
The assumption in the spiritual teachings is that the whole cosmos has been created or emanates from energies or forces at the highest level of consciousness. As a consequence, as spiritual searchers evolve, they naturally exude compassion, love, sense of service, and a feeling of unity with everyone. In the enterprise of scientific research, the effort is to get more and more accurate knowledge of the laws governing the external universe based on the assumption that everything in the cosmos has evolved from matter without consciousness.
In scientific research the person needs to be out of the way and the quality of being of the scientist is irrelevant. Some highly regarded scientists have been wonderful human beings and some quite self-centered and fearful. And for some great scientists, scientific research itself has been a spiritual path.
This set of webinars is intended for anybody interested in the two major needs of the human soul, namely meaning and knowledge. It is not necessary but it can be helpful if the participants can read the book Science and the Sacred by Ravi Ravindra.