The Science of Union

by John Hinds                                    

The Argument

1.       Yoga (or Union^[1]) is a science.[2]

2.       Science is based on the consensus of a community of experts; different fields of knowledge have developed different accepted methods of investigation.

3.       Only experts who have qualified themselves by preparation and training are qualified to rightly assess knowledge in the area of their own expertise.

4.       The consensus of a community of experts in acquiring intellectual knowledge may be mistaken; it is always based on incomplete knowledge. All intellectual knowledge is relative and is never fully complete.[3]

5.       Knowledge is a function of being. Even given the limitations of incompleteness, we can only know what we are willing to know and which we are equipped, or have equipped ourselves to know.

6.       In order to equip ourselves for the Knowledge of Union, or Yoga, certain preparations need to be made. In addition to intellectual preparation, certain purifications of character and of mind must be realized.

7.       Rationalism demands that for knowledge to be truly ours, we must verify it for ourselves and must not rely on consensus or opinion.

8.       Yogic knowledge can be verified by oneself given that the necessary preparations have been made.

9.       Those who have made such preparations and purifications of character are the experts in the field of Yoga.

10.     There is a broad underlying consensus among those who have acquired the knowledge of Union as to the nature of such knowledge, albeit, across different times and cultures the manner in which yogic insights have been expressed varies and may vary in underlying details. Such variations in perception are found in all sciences.[4]

11.     Those who have not made the necessary preparations are therefore not qualified to pass judgment on the validity of such knowledge.

12.     When Knowledge of Union has been acquired, the intellect assents to it as valid knowledge.

13.     Thus, Knowledge of Union may be demonstrated but cannot be truly conveyed by means of the intellect alone.[5]

 

The Science of Union

Yoga (or the process of “Union of the Self”) claims to be a science. How valid is this claim? To answer that, we need to know: what is yoga, what is union, and what is science.

Perhaps the easiest to answer is what, in practice, yoga is. It’s often stated that yoga means union. It comes from the same basic root as “yoke”. The sort of yoga most people are familiar with is Hatha Yoga. In Hatha Yoga you work with the physical body. Its aim is the unification and coordination (balancing and health) of the physical body. Today there are many variations of Hatha Yoga with different names, but all these yogas (focusing solely on physical development), are basically some variation of Hatha Yoga.

There are other types of yoga as well. These are more spiritual in nature (defining ‘spiritual’ as what is, for you, your ‘next step ahead’ in development) as they aim to reach union with—‘Reality’—the ‘Ground of Being’—God—‘Self-Realization’—or however you want to name and define it.[6] It is these types of yoga that will be subject of this essay. One might delineate Ultimate Reality as R, and the slices of Reality that science deals with as R_r. In Eastern philosophy and religion to realize the true nature of the Self is equivalent to realization of ultimate reality. This is not to limit the notion of Union; any process that has as its aim this Union or Realization, and which can demonstrate results may be considered a type of yoga. Some, of course, are more formally systematic than others.[7] A purely intellectual pursuit of knowledge or a Christian mystic’s devotional practices may all be considered forms of yoga aimed at the knowledge of Union. There are many paths to the one goal. Nor are traditional means the best for everyone. Humanity evolves, albeit slowly, and what suited our grandparents may not suit us today. The first step toward finding that path is to Inquire the Way.

In terms of more traditional, formal yogas, Bhakti Yoga aims at union through devotion and is focused on loving devotion towards any ideal of a personal God. (As the Yoga Sutras of Patánjali put it, “By intense devotion to Ishvara, knowledge of Ishvara [i.e, a personal deity] is gained.”)

Jnana Yoga is the path of knowledge. One strives to arrive and union through a path of questioning the true nature of the self, reality or the ‘ground of being’, often with a guide. This might be the path of the scientist or philosopher.

Karma Yoga is union through action for its own sake, learning to act for the good without personal attachment.

Raja (Royal or Kingly) Yoga is union through control of the mind, as indicated in Patánjali’s Yoga Sutras.

A final, lesser-known yoga is Agni Yoga. This yoga strives for union by means of Agni or spiritual fire, also thought of as psychic energy, integrated into the “Living Ethics” of one’s day-to-day life. It this respect it is similar to karma yoga.[8]

Union

In the present context any effort that has “self-realization” “self-purification” or “enlightenment” as its goal may be considered a type of yoga. As all the spiritual yogas, or steps toward Union, have the same goal, spiritual Union or self-realization, and as they also seem quite subjective, on what basis can they be considered to be a “science”. What exactly qualifies as a “science”?

Science

Science may refer to a general body of knowledge confirmed by experiment and consensus. It may also denote systematic inquiry with the aim of expanding and refining knowledge.

The current consensus of most scientific inquirers favors an approach to knowledge that is objective, and verifiable. (The word ‘objective’ itself suggests a reality apart from the consciousness of the observer, a condition difficult to demonstrate as Bertrand Russell noted when he wrote that “Space and time are subjective; they are part of our apparatus of perception”.) To repeat something in a scientific experiment is the most commonly accepted way to verify it. Not all portions of reality are subject to the test of repeatability, however.

It would be a mistake to think that this is the only valid way knowledge can be verified, or that this method can be applied to all possible types of knowledge. As Aldous Huxley noted, “science is almost impotent to cope with the particular case, the isolated instance. Promoting their methodological ineptitude to the rank of a criterion of truth, dogmatic scientists have often branded everything beyond the pale of their limited competence as unreal and even impossible.”[a] In other words if science (as it is currently understood) lacks the means to study something, it tends to be ignored.

Scientific Knowledge

Science attempts to acquire knowledge systematically, rationally, and through agreed upon methods of verification.

A “Rational” approach to knowledge through inquiry makes the following assumptions:—

(1) “Reason” (using the mind to think and form judgements by a process of logic^[9]) is the chief means of knowledge inquiry and final judge of its validity.

(2) For knowledge to be truly our own we all must inquire and gain knowledge for ourselves, and not accept some external authority. (In other words we must do our own thinking.) Knowledge which cannot be rationally demonstrated, or which reason tells us must be false, must be rejected.

Of course, reasoning may be faulty, or may be based on assumptions which are only partially true, (or which might even be shown eventually to be completely false). Some of our assumptions may not be capable of any immediate proof or disproof by reason. So even reason has its limits. Karl Popper’s notion of falsification[b] suggests that for a theory to be considered scientific it must be able to be tested and conceivably proven false. Popper’s fundamental premise suggests that anything we “know” might be proven to be false at some future point.

It is safe to say that most of what we “know” is not our knowledge at all according to these criteria. We take it on faith that the sun is some 93 million miles away, and that the earth is round. This is a kind of “group knowledge”; it is more accurate to call it a consensus. We haven’t ourselves measured the distance of the sun from the Earth and few would even know how to do it. The Ptolemaic system of the planets held sway for thousands of years; few questioned it. We also believe, against the direct evidence of our senses and, of ordinary sense, that the Earth is round. Recall that at one time the belief that the Earth was flat was the commonly accepted consensus. We have many more reasons for accepting a round Earth as a fact than the ancients did, but even today there are a few ‘flat Earthers”. So, there is almost never universal agreement on anything.

Thus, most of what we accept as knowledge is not really our knowledge at all, and all group knowledge/consensus can be mistaken; it is always incomplete, and it may or may not be subject to a direct test of its validity.

The study knowledge, how it is acquired, and whether is can be verified is epistemology. Epistemology shows that no system of knowing or of acquiring knowledge can be complete. In other words, human ideas and methods of inquiry are never completely true. At best they are true as far as they go. (Newtonian physics is a good example. It serves us well for most things but not so much when dealing with the very large, such as galactic distances—where it has been superseded by Relativity, or the very small—the world of sub-atomic particles—which Quantum Theory describes.) Therefore, if all our knowledge is at best only partially true; it is more realistic to think of knowledge as being useful or not useful. Certain ideas or ways of solving knowledge problems are more useful than others in particular situations. Often framing a problem in the more useful way is halfway toward solving it.[c]

The data in different fields of inquiry requires different approaches. Things that can be observed directly, and repeated (like the effect of sunlight on a given plant, or the rate of acceleration of a body falling in the atmosphere) are fairly straightforward, but many things, even in the physical world, may not be directly observable, or else they are unique, unrepeatable events.

But not everything is directly observable with our senses or even with the most sophisticated scientific instruments. Can we directly observe the mind or measure and quantify love? Physicists often study things that cannot be observed directly by their effects.[10] In psychology where it is often necessary to study things indirectly, there is a concept called ‘construct validity’ by which the existence of something that cannot be directly observed may be inferred by a number of specific effects that point to its existence, (according to a predicting theory or hypothesis).

The main problem is how do you manage to make different people’s subjective experiences “objective”? (In other words how does one reach a consensus about them, which in the last analysis is what “objective” really means.)

To further complicate things quantum physics indicates that the very act of observation changes things and the idea that there is an observer completely detached from what is observed is one of those convenient fictions science chooses to act on “as if” it were true.

The Map is not the Territory. ^[11]

We create mental maps or metaphors about reality as we see it; form theories about it; make predictions, and are constantly surprised when the theory or mental map turns out to be wrong or that it does not explain half as much as we had assumed it did.

Many still believe (without any compelling evidence) in a completely “materialistic” model of reality (in the R_r sense). It used to be that this model was basically mechanistic. The universe was like a great machine or clock. Once all its parts and motions were understood you could theoretically predict the next state of the system. Modern physics and quantum theory have quashed that. In fact, the more we know about quantum realities the curioser and curioser it gets. Nevertheless, many still believe that ‘someday’ a Grand Unified Theory of Everything (GUT) will manage to explain it all: The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything... But this belief seems to be becoming more and more controversial as it involves some unproven, and unprovable metaphysical assumptions:

First, that there can be one final intellectual answer to ‘explain’ Reality (whatever that may mean).

Second, that the human intellect is equipped to know, find and formulate that answer. In other words, we are assuming that there is a correspondence between the object as it is represented in the consciousness of the observer and the object as it “really is”. This is one of the great metaphysical assumptions that science makes. Another is that our minds, senses, inputs, scientific instruments and what-not are capable of giving us anywhere near a complete picture of reality. Truly, we don’t even know what we don’t know.

The third assumption is that things can be adequately understood as absolutely separate entities. This allows the examination of the parts without reference to the whole. This does allow one to study things in isolation but it cannot claim to be any sort of complete knowledge. We can no longer believe, for instance that the observer and the observed are absolutely independent and have no effect on each other, as experiments in Quantum Physics have demonstrated.

In psychology what is known as “Experimenter Effect” (the influence of a researcher’s conscious, and unconscious, expectations on subject responses and research outcomes) is very real and is the reason behind “double blind” studies in medical research—to minimize the Placebo (or Expectancy) Effect on outcomes. It has been estimated that anywhere from 25% to 50% of a medicine’s efficacy can be due to expectancy.

The Lens of the Mind.

All knowledge whether it be classed as ‘objective’ or ‘subjective’ ultimately comes through the aperture of the mind, not the senses. In fact, sense data alone, without some organizing principle such as the brain/mind provides is meaningless.

In earlier days in psychology, one way of exploring the world of the mind and the psyche was “the method of introspection”. This was developed in the 19th Century by Wilheim Wundt. Wundt tried to make the process of introspection as structured and precise as possible. Observers were highly trained and the process itself was highly controlled.

This approach has certain benefits but also limitations. Even among scientists working in the same field, there is often no consensus about facts observable with the five senses or what the results of a particular experiment may mean. So the problem becomes even more acute when dealing with subjective states of mind, which are subject to many sorts of bias, and where there is no clear means of corrective comparison. One cannot even be sure that one is talking about the same thing, even if the same words are used. This limitation is not confined to the method of introspection alone. In personality research terms like ‘the self’ are bandied about, but there is no clear consensus among different theoretical schools as to what that term really means. And this is one of the most fundamental concepts!

In psychological research the method of introspection has been largely abandoned. This is unfortunate as there are certain experiences that can be researched in no other way. But the fact that it is not formally used in research, and has a number of confounds in reaching community consensus, does not invalidate it as a source of knowledge.[12]

An added complication is the fact that not all knowledge is accessible to everyone. Some knowledge requires special training, or preparation. Furthermore, we are conditioned to accept some knowledge as a result of personal or cultural beliefs, our genetic inheritance, and our temperaments. Some kinds of knowledge are more acceptable to people of certain mental temperaments than others. Scientists in this regard are no less biased in this regard than any other group, despite their liking to think of themselves as coolly objective. Things that lie outside the accepted scientific paradigms tend to be ignored or rejected. The more fundamental an idea threatens established norms, the greater the opposition.

Thus it may be said that knowledge is a function of being. We can only know what we are willing to know, and what we are equipped, or have equipped ourselves to know.

Unlike Western culture today, where philosophy is considered to be a purely intellectual pursuit, in the East and among the Western philosophers of the ancient world, it was accepted that philosophical ‘wisdom’^[13] depended on the development not only of one’s mind, but one’s character. In line with this idea, knowledge of Union demands certain preparations and purifications of character and of mind to be realized.

In his anthology, The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley by-passed the professional theologians and philosophers:

“The reason for this is very simple. The Perennial Philosophy is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit. Why should this be so? We do not know. It is just one of those facts which we have to accept, whether we like them or not and however implausible and unlikely they may seem. Nothing in our everyday experience gives us any reason for supposing that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen; and yet when we subject water to certain rather drastic treatments, the nature of its constituent elements becomes manifest. Similarly, nothing in our everyday experience gives us much reason for supposing that the mind of the average sensual man has, as one of its constituents, something resembling, or identical with, the Reality substantial to the manifold world; and yet, when that mind is subjected to certain rather drastic treatments, the divine element, of which it is in part at least composed, becomes manifest, not only to the mind itself, but also, by its reflection in external behaviour, to other minds. It is only by making physical experiments that we can discover the intimate nature of matter and its potentialities. And it is only by making psychological and moral experiments that we can discover the intimate nature of mind and its potentialities. In the ordinary circumstances of average sensual life these potentialities of the mind remain latent and unmanifested. If we would realize them, we must fulfil certain conditions and obey certain rules, which experience has shown empirically to be valid. …. And it is mainly to these, because there is good reason for supposing that they knew what they were talking about, and not to the professional philosophers or men of letters, that I have gone for my selections.”[d]

Regarding higher states of consciousness, and other means of awareness beyond the intellect and the five senses, the only question about them is, Do they exist or not? Nothing is more unscientific than to assume something does or does not exist without an investigation into the facts.

As Huxley demonstrated in The Perennial Philosophy, among those who have acquired the knowledge of Union there is a broad underlying consensus regarding the nature of such knowledge, albeit, across different times and cultures the manner in which insights into the nature of Reality (R) have been expressed has varied, and may vary in underlying details. Such variations in perception are found in all sciences.

There is ample testimony and consensus (cf. The Varieties of Religious Experience[e], Mysticism[f], The Perennial Philosophy[g] or the Yoga Sutras of Patánjali) as to the nature and the means of acquiring knowledge of Union. It does not require ‘faith’ (in the sense of believing without evidence), but practice, and it is verifiable in one’s own personal experience.

However, as implied earlier, the intellect is equipped to study and understand the parts (R_r) but it can never grasp the whole (R). Thus, the normal intellectual approach to the whole of Reality R, or the Ground of Being, is inadequate.

Given all this, how does one hope to acquire the knowledge of Union?

Undertaking the Journey

The potential to consciously evolve is a rare human gift. Buddhists traditionally believe that Enlightenment can only be achieved through life in the human state. You begin where you are. There is no guarantee that you will acquire the final awareness of the ‘Ground of Being’, as Huxley puts it. You will, however, develop greater insight and awareness as you progress. Only the sorts of people William James called the geniuses of religion or the saints seem to achieve the higher stages of Union. But to undertake the quest, whether or not you reach the final goal has its own rewards.

The quest for Union or to know the Self, will bring about a revolution in your way of life if you pursue it. And, if you pursue it, you must make the choice to make it a part of your life for the rest of your life, or it will get you nowhere.[14] Even if you come short of the ultimate goal you will find the pursuit of this knowledge will bring many insights and rewards, along with challenges, along the way.

As the practice of mindfulness and its benefits is becoming widely known, that might be one place to begin. Grasping the basic concept, simple as it seems, can be elusive. What mindfulness requires is the development of the attitude of an observer of your own experiences, thoughts, feelings and judgments by simply noting them, without judgment and without necessarily needing to change them.

I often had patients whom I believed could have been helped immensely by meditation, but who were unable to get past the stage of dealing with the incessant distractions, mind-wanderings or feelings of anxiety that inevitably arose. To no avail, I would point out that learning to master the distractions is itself part of the process. One becomes a master by mastering. The frustrations or even the anxieties, hitherto masked by an abundance of distractions, proved too much for them and they gave it up. Usually, one will consider undertaking the journey only when it is clear that one’s life is not working or if one has ‘divine discontent’ a dissatisfaction with the usual explanations and a desire to know Reality as it is.

Many of the patients I worked with wanted a clear roadmap for change with each step laid out like a cookbook recipe—we almost never dealt with the bigger question of Union—but it just does not work that way. It’s more like a determination to climb a mountain. The destination as you stand at the mountain’s foot seems formidable and the peak far off or hidden in the clouds. Nevertheless if one is determined to make the attempt one begins by learning what one can about this mountain; mountain climbing; learning from others’ experiences and gathering such tools and guides as may be needed. Once you reach the first level, things will look different; you will be different because you will have learned from the first ascent. Now the challenge is to get to the next level and the process is a similar one, plus what you have just learned and what you can learn from your new perspective. And so on. In fact, one of the things traditional yogas teach is developing the tools necessary to achieve Union through our own acts and the power of our minds focused on the goal.

One of these tools is love. Not love in the usual sense of human affection, which is based on feelings, attractions, preferences, but rather the ideal of Christian Love, called agape. This is a love that is essentially disinterested, or not self-interested. It is an ideal; few reach it.

It is built into form to have preferences. A square peg does not prefer a round hole. Many of our filters and preferences operate even before we are aware of them consciously. Likes and dislikes are normal and we find them throughout the natural world. Agape asks that we transcend these built-in limitations. Many traditions have taught that striving toward this love is the shortest way to achieve unitive knowledge.

If I believed that indeed there was anything supernatural, that is above nature, I would call this love a supernatural virtue. As it is, I will have to be content in calling it supernormal. It is rare, but throughout history there have been people who achieved it to a greater or lesser degree.

As the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing[15] put it thus, using the traditional terms of the Christian mystic:

“of God Himself can no man think. And therefore I would leave behind everything that I can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why?—He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be had and held; but by thought never.”

Putting it in modern terms, the intellect alone is incapable of grasping R, the Ground of Being or Ultimate Reality. Aspiring to love in the Agape sense, puts you on the path toward knowing. The attempt helps bring about the changes and helps create the tools for change, and further insights. At no point is one asked to cast aside one’s knowledge or one’s mind. The final arbiter is you yourself. The Science of Union is the quest to apprehend Reality as it is. What can be more scientific than that?

Final Thoughts

To learn something truly new requires the attitude of the ‘beginner’s mind’: nonjudgment, keen observation, and persistence in the face of obstacles—and obstacles will come! The same might be said of almost any new discovery. Whatever path you try, learn what you can from others who have followed similar paths, but realize ultimately you can rely only on yourself and your own experience. How can you know the path you are following is the right one for you? Aside from anything else you may experience or learn in your life journey,—Is it expanding your awareness? Making you a better, more accepting, more loving person? If it does not—leave it alone!

Regarding the formal practice of Indian Yoga, Swami Vivekananda has said, “…is it practical? .... Yoga says it is practical .... Supposing it is not—suppose there are doubts in your mind. You have got to try it. There is no other way out....” “I am always asked the question: ‘Shall I give up meat?’ My Master said, ‘Why should you give up anything? It will give you up.’”

In other words as Augustine said, “Love God and do what you will”. You will find things you outgrow many things; they will fall away because there is no longer anything in you that attracts them. Vivekananda again: “Those who practice [yoga] hard will get many other signs. ... and when these things come, know that you are progressing very fast”. “It is much easier to do anything upon the external plane, but the greatest conqueror in the world finds himself a mere child when he tries to control his own mind. This is the world he has to conquer—the greater and more difficult world to conquer. Do not despair! Awake, arise, and stop not until the goal is reached!”

The Kesamutti Sutta, relates the following discourse of the Buddha, Gautama Siddartha,

“Thus I have heard. Once the Buddha was wandering in the Kosalan country and came to a town of the Kalama people called Kesaputta.

“After giving him praise as the Exalted One, a Fully Enlightened One, perfect in wisdom and practice, the people asked how they could separate true teachings from false teachings.

 ‘Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, “This monk is our teacher”.

Kalamas, when you yourselves know: “These things are good; these things are blameless; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,” then enter on and abide in them.’ ”

“The journey of a Thousand Li begins beneath your feet.” Lao-tse.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matt. 5:8.

 

Footnotes