“Marvelous indeed is the Lord’s universe.  Within it He is working all His wonders of creation.  Do not be a walking “dead man” in this world; observe, analyze, and appreciate what God and his agent, man Have wrought here.  How intricate is the universal mechanism!  Reflect on the way we are made, and in what orderly fashion the whole machinery of creation runs according to cosmic law.” (pp.251, Man’s Eternal Quest)

The S.R.F. Message in the Changing World of Science

By Dr. Stephen Brena

Paramahansa Yogananda came to the United States in 1920, to a western world shocked by the carnage of World War One, but still very much conformable in a solid, predictable Universe ruled by the Newtonian laws of classic physics, confident in a linear evolutionary process as proposed by Darwin, and content with the theologies of conventional, historic Christianity.

To this complacent world, our great Master did boldly throw three ideas so powerful that western culture will never be the same again.

- The first is the conception of a scientific practice of religion. Traditional religious systems are based on divine Revelations, dogmatically interpreted and to be accepted as such, by faith on the authority of the Church which proclaims them. When our Guru advocates the practice of "scientific meditation,' he completely shifts the religions paradigm from blind faith to empirical experience, which is the scientific paradigm.

Perhaps, a brief explanation of the scientific process may be useful here to truly capture the magnitude of this idea. In science, knowledge is acquired through several stages: first a researcher must collect experimental observations about the phenomena under investigation; secondly he or she must correlate the empirical results with abstract symbols until a precise theory is worked out; thirdly the theory must be cross-validated by other researchers, who, following the same research method, would reach the same results; finally, the theory must be translated into a language which can be understood by average, educated people. When all these steps are completed, the theory can be eventually applied for practical purposes.

Kriya Yoga meets all these scientific stages: the SRF techniques, during which the devotee gains empirical insights about subtle forces at work within the human person, would correspond to the first stage; when these insights are correlated with the words of our Guru, the whole, grand theory of Yoga is realized, with its eight steps and the final glory of Samadhi; thirdly, the theory is cross-validated by thousands of letters published over the years in the Self-Realization Magazine from devotees who have experienced the power of Kriya Yoga to achieve Self-Realization. Of course, just as a sloppy scientist, by neglecting to follow research protocols carefully, may fail to achieve the expected results, so a poorly motivated devotee, by neglecting to follow faithfully our Master's teaching, may never experience the joy of Self-Realization. Finally, the entire spiritual experiences of an enlightened yogi are translated into a language capable to educate and inspire other people. Every SRF devotee should be thankful for the unique ability of Paramahansa Yogananda to communicate his deep spiritual realizations in simple words, similes, poems, examples from everyday life. We should also be very thankful to the direct disciples of our Guru who have learned his communication skills and are training second, third and fourth generations of monastics in those same skills. When Self-Realization is achieved, every devotee can put it into practice every day following the ideals of Karma Yoga.

- The second idea is the warning that the material world is not what appears to be by our sensory perceptions. Our Guru teaches that duality and relativity are the hidden fabric of the Universe. Today, Quantum physics knows that the solid aspect of matter is the consequence of a "Quantum effect" connected with the dual "wave-particle" property of matter. "Quanta" are a fundamental aspect of nature: light and every other form of electromagnetic radiation can appear at the same time both as a wave and as a particle, i.e., an entity confined to a very small volume, whereas a wave is spread out over a large region of space. This is the so-called "Quantum paradox," the tricky work of Maya or Aparaprakriti. Indeed, at the subatomic level the solid material objects dissolve into wavelike patterns of interconnected probabilities. The equivalence of matter and energy, postulated by the Specific Theory of  Relativity, is so well validated by innumerable experiments that presently the masses of particles are measured in their corresponding energy units. One is here reminded of the words of Paramahansa Yogananda - quoted by Sri Mrinalini Mata -: "the world is not real; do not take it too seriously"!

Our Guru teaches that matter is made of intelligent thought-forces, "the thoughtrons" (the "Mind of God"), which materialize into the lower vibrations of "lifetrons" (prana), electrons, protons, atoms, molecules, cells and organs. In other words, matter is composed of "anu" (atoms), "paramanu" (subatomic particles) and subtle energies. Modern physics has stripped matter layer after layer, has learned about cells, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, various forms of energy, and, lately, with the "String Theory" may have glimpsed pranic energies. "Strings" are subtle patterns of energy so called because they vibrate like the tonal vibrations from a violin. In a recent public television presentation of the "String Theory" the commentator remarked that String Theory evokes the image of a Universe similar to a "cosmic symphony," a statement often proclaimed by Master in his poems: the whole creation is a divine symphony, the "Opus Magnum" of AUM!

Of course, it is likely that we must wait the next Treta Yuga before "thoughtrons" are scientifically discovered and the working of the mind properly understood. However, already now, three-hundred years into the Dwapara Yuga, some thinkers at the cutting-edge of science, are hinting to the mathematical possibility of thoughtrons. For example, Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles, on the basis of his own research which won him the Nobel Prize in Neurophysiology, believes that there is a nonmaterial mind, a mental world which acts upon and interacts with the material brain; with the help of Quantum physicist Fredrick Beck, Eccles shows that the mind-brain linkage can be viewed as a flow of information at the subatomic level of the brain structures by means of Quantum energy patterns that he calls "Psychons" (from the Greek "psychos" = mind). Likewise, physicist Nick Herbert observes that mind is a fundamental force of nature as gravity and electromagnetism. Mind interacts with matter at the level of emergence into actuality of Quantum events. Herbert postulates the mathematical possibility of mental "quanta," which he calls "cogitons" (from the Latin "cogito" = to think)."Psychons" and "Cogitons" express a scientific conviction that matter is fundamentally "mind stuff," just as our Guru has been telling us.

Master often compares the Universe to a dream motion-picture of God, produced by the delusive films of relativity. A new astonishing theory, first proposed by physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, called the "Holographic principle," holds that the Universe - and we in it -- is like a hologram: just as a trick of light and shadow transforms a three-dimensional image into a flat piece of film, our seemingly three-dimensional universe could be equivalent to alternative Quantum fields and physical laws projected into a vast screen of time-space.

Our Master explains that living conditions, both in individuals and in their environment, can suddenly change, dramatically and unpredictably, due to the coming into fruition of hidden karmic seeds from long past and forgotten actions (the "Samsara," or cycles of reincarnation). Modern scientists have recently formulated a "Chaos Theory," which postulates that the behavior of complex, nonlinear systems (all organic systems, including man, are complex and nonlinear) is unpredictable. In these complex, non linear systems a small change in the conditions of the systems could produce a huge change in their behavior; to use the language of the computer: a small change in the input may lead to major changes in the output. In the words of one of the most respected physicists, John Von Neumann, "In science as in life, it is well known that a chain of events can have a point of crisis that could magnify small changes." Albert Einstein was never reconciled to the idea of a non-deterministic, chaotic universe; in a letter to the great physicist Neils Bohr, he insisted that "God does not play dice." At the present, many scientists are groping to find an underlying determinism in the behavior of chaotic systems. How long before a scientist will understand that the answer to this search can only be found in the eternal Dharma and in its corollary law of causation or Karma, as beautifully stated by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, IX:3)? In other words, how long before empirical research shall be extended into the spiritual domain and investigate the impact that spiritual forces, such as love, prayer,  meditation, faith, may have upon human behaviors? As Sir John Templeton and Robert Herman suggest, one day we may see a new science, "Experimental Theology", emerging from empirical research in the realm of the eternal Dharma!

Master repeatedly warns against overconfidence upon the power of reason, since reason is linked to the relativity of sensory perceptions. And yet, all successful scientific research is based upon mathematics, the rock-fortress of reason. Modern scientists believe that through mathematical reasoning they can ultimately formulate a "theory of every thing." Unfortunately, a mathematician has already breached the fortress of reason and has demonstrated the limits of mathematics. Kurt Godel is an Austrian mathematician, who proved that within a formal, mathematical system questions exist that are neither provable nor disprovable on the basis of the axons that define the system. This is known as the Godel's "Undecidability Theorem." A second Godel's theorem, known as the "Incompleteness Theorem" shows that in a sufficiently large formal system requiring an answer to all questions, there will be contradictions. All the devotees of Paramahansa Yogananda know how to bypass the limitations of reason, by developing intuition, the all-knowing faculty of the soul.

Along with the new physics, the science of neurophysiology is changing as well. Modern Physics explains the apparent solidity of matter as the consequence of electrons revolving around an atomic nucleus at velocities near to the speed of light, just as a propeller revolving at high speed gives the illusion of a solid disc. Sensors in the human body pick up energy patterns and encode them in a language that the brain can understand: different energy patterns are transduced into specific sensations of light, sound, touch, taste and smell. Sensations are perceived by the brain and cognized into categories of logical reasoning, which transforms sensations, into "objects" and color them with like-dislike emotions. In the eyes of modern science, "objects" are nothing but ephemeral creations of the human mind from pattern of energy. The cherished "objects" for which so many people work so hard are nothing but some electrons orbiting at high speed around an atomic nucleus made of few quarks! One may be reminded here of the words of Sri Yukteswar in the "Holy Science"; commenting upon vibrations, time, space and atoms, the great Sages remarks: "they are therefore one and the same and substantially nothing but mere ideas"!

- The third idea that Sri Yukteswar and Paramahansa Yogananda presented to the world around the second and third decades of the XX century is the conception of a cyclical upward moving evolution, in sharp contrast with the traditional linear upward evolution postulated by Charles Darwin. In December 2003 that conception was presented and debated in a public television program, called "The Great Year", with the participation of Brother Achalananda, among several other scholars.

As the idea that humankind participates in 12,000 solar years of ascending and 12,000 years of descending evolutionary cycles during a "Great Year" of 24,000 years, will keep percolating throughout the world scholarly community, it is very likely that archeologists, historians, philosophers will start to revise their former concepts and reframe them in the new context of the Great Year. As Master predicts in the Commentary of the Gita, ancient civilizations, now regarded as primitive, will be understood as examples of a humanity far more advanced than our own historical age. This future trend was already shown during the television presentation of the "Great Year." Some theologians will likely notice that the entire evolution of Christianity, and of Islam as well, occurred during the last Dark Age, which ended about 1700 AD. Men and women in the Dark Age could not grasp anything outside the material world, and therefore the eternal spiritual message of Lord Jesus was distorted and framed into dogmas of external, material worship, where God is made an "object" to be praised and feared. It will not take very long before a profound theological evolution in a deeper spiritual direction shall occur. It is not by chance that at this very time in history, the "Second Coming," the true spiritual message of Lord Jesus in the Commentary of Paramahansa Yogananda is nearing publication.

In summary, modern science presents a world of interconnected, ever changing, ever in motion processes, or events, as they are called in Quantum physics, a web of energy patterns governed by the principles of relativity and uncertainty. Man is not a free observer of this world of ever-changing, unpredictable events, but a conditioned participator. At the subconscious level, man is aware of his position as an element of the cosmic restlessness and experiences it as chronic, existential anxiety and fear. The only way out from the cosmic "dance" is to anchor our consciousness firmly and permanently to that and only changeless, essential Reality we call God.

And this is exactly the SRF message to the changing world of humankind.