There are two movements, seemingly parallel, that have influenced the scientific mind of the last century. The first entered into the abyss of matter tearing one veil after another from the face of all that appeared to be substance and form. It explored the dumb depths to discover dark secrets. Incredible powers were found and harnessed for the purpose of improving man’s outer life. Amid the heart of the earth lay asleep the secret to dive and fly. Its energy could be used to drive huge machines, give light or destroy the world entirely. Amazing drugs were discovered that sped straight through specific parts of the body to heal or harm. The far became near, the dumb began to speak. Even death’s army appeared to be receding as the siege of science put everything under the control of material laws and processes. The mystery and charm of life appeared to be lost except for a thin substratum of quantum quarks spinning in an empty void. It was hoped that having understood this, nothing more would remain. The ocean was fathomed, the bowels of earth plundered, the sky scanned. What more could be left, except for stretches of endless silent star studded space, and this too would speak some day at the command of man? All life seemed soon to be reduced to mechanical formulae. But not quite.
Somewhere in the middle of the last century, the heart of man revolted. It was unconvinced by the imposing logic and might of material science and its extremely mechanical universe, man had become a machine amongst other machines. That was the verdict of material science. However, humanity did not agree. Something more, something else was there that had escaped. Science tried to cover it up with its theory of ‘chance’. The anomalous and unexplained simply did not exist because material methods could not study it. The Yogi’s stopping of breath was an anomaly of his autonomous nervous system. The supernatural was a figment of the imagination of credulous and gullible minds. The power of thought and suggestion was a myth. The cases of spiritual cure were simply those of spontaneous recovery for unknown material reasons. Enlightenment was an anomaly arising in pathological minds, and the paranormal a sign of an abnormal hallucinating creature with disordered brain cells.
However, the ‘chances’ began to multiply. The anomalous became more frequent. The curious mind of science first watched sceptically, then analytically, only to find that a rigid determinism did not apply anywhere. Even at the purely material and physical level, there was a scope for randomness and an indeterminate movement that defied codification and showed an element of covert or secret choice that creates order out of chaos.
The life of man continued to remain unpredictable for one reason or another. The eye of science finally turned towards discovering the enigma called man. This gave birth to another movement, the study of self and consciousness. The world saw a growing diversion of the mind of man into psychology, yoga, spirituality, even to a revival of religion. It witnessed a return of faith, methods of self-development and alternative systems based on tapping hidden powers of life and mind. The scientist has started measuring these other domains with his scales. And though a few pockets of resistance still remain, by and large there is a thinning of the wall between the two and both are beginning to admit the influence of the other.
