Edi Billimoria is an author and lecturer who encourages the cross fertilization of ideas in fields of science, religion, and perennial philosophy. A trustee of the Scientific & Medical Network and Advisor to the Network’s Galileo Commission, he recently published, in 4 volumes, Unfolding Consciousness : Exploring the Living Universe and Intelligent Powers in Nature and Humans.
As one world, our pressing need is for a renaissance and a restitution of what it means to be really human. This has been caused by the global monopoly of scientific materialism, where knowledge is dominated by secular values.
In the darkest days of 1943, while speaking to a Jewish Seminary, Albert Einstein put his finger on the problem: “we should”, he said, “take care not to make the intellect our goal. It has of course powerful muscles but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve, and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader. This characteristic is reflected in the qualities of its priests, the intellectuals. The intellect has a sharp eye for methods and tools but is blind to ends and values. So, it is no wonder that this fatal blindness is handed on from old to young and today involves a whole generation.”
The problem is the excessive worshipping and acknowledging of intellect at the expense of the higher human qualities. While we have derived enormous benefit from science and technology we have forgotten the Key—the perennial philosophy—which reveals the spiritual origins and the true nature of what it means to be really human in a living universe.
The tragedy for me is that scientists of legendary status have pointed out the limits and limitations of science and technology taken to extremes, but their wise words have been almost totally ignored.
In modern times the finest examples I can think of are Max Planck and Schrodinger. In one of his wonderful books, What is Life?, Schrodinger said the scientific picture is very deficient. For while science can tell us about how waves of compression and rarefaction strike our eardrums and then by a neurological process, a salty fluid exudes from our eyes, it is ghastly silent about why, and how an old song can move us to tears. It is even more silent about the Great Origins and the questions we ask about divinity and ‘Where am I going?’
What it means to be human has constituted the backbone of the perennial philosophy of all ages and all cultures since time immemorial. Whether expressed through the mystery teachings of the ancient Indians, The Egyptians, the Greeks, or in its wonderful modern format, through such titanic works as those of Rudolf Steiner, Madame Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, this timeless philosophy points out, the distinction between the human body and the human being.
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