Interconnection Between Research and Spirituality

"Research and spirituality goes hand in hand"

Research is deep introspection of something which is backed up by scientific logic. Spirituality denotes "soul searching", or searching for the true spirit and meaning of life. Spirituality in many cases has seen to be defying science but if we delve deeper we can observe that science and spirituality are interconnected.

Spirituality has existed since the ancient ages of Vedas and Upanishads. As we know from Indian history, many of the pioneers were influenced by spiritual thoughts present in Vedic philosophy. Leaders like Swami Vivekananda, Nikola Tesla started reform movements after being enlightened by spiritual thoughts. So research is born from spirituality only. Spirituality is actually a bonding power which binds all the individuals together in terms of thoughts, emotions and influences our decision making and heals our mind. Research advocates the fact that a happy and peaceful mind plays an important role in healing our body.

From times immemorial, many scientists and artists have highlighted many spiritual things. They have been backed up by research later on, but at that moment they lacked scientific knowledge to verify it. So ultimately research helped them to validate their spiritual thoughts. If we view the evolution of life, it can be seen as a creative unfolding of life because of the presence of diversity and complexity which are intrinsic properties of all living beings. Spiritual thoughts will define evolution as random mutation and creation of new life only. But research analyses it as creative work at the molecular and genetic level.

Fasting is an example of attaining higher spiritual power and elevating oneself to the higher level. It is believed to be a method of satisfying our inner soul and gaining inner peace. It is a means of restraining oneself from the experience of eating, in order to refresh our minds and soul. However recent research visualizes it in a different light. Fasting gives rest to our digestive system and other parts of the body, thereby helping us to preserve our health. It also repairs the damaged DNA and cells of our body, regenerates the stem cells and pancreatic cells. So research and spiritual thinking visualizes the same thing in different perspectives.

Life after death is a prevalent topic in the field of spirituality and science. According to medical science, a person showing no brain activity is assumed to be dead. But however there have been medical cases, where a person has been able to describe things even after the brain had stopped working for a few seconds. Science has not been able to ascertain that consciousness exists separately from the physical organs. Spirituality defines consciousness as a non-materialistic thing beyond the comprehension of human beings.

Non-material science is an issue which has been the point of conflict between philosophers and scientists. The definition of matter was unclear to many philosophers before the nineteenth century. Researchers after exploring the relationship between energy and the structure of matter, came to the conclusion that everything in this universe is made up of energy. However spirituality consider matter to be an illusion. Scientific research of such materialistic philosophy led to the discovery of quantum mechanics when classical physics failed to explain the concepts.

Thus it can be seen that research and spirituality agrees and conflicts in many issues. Research which is seen as the truth bearer can help us to uplift us into a more spiritual world by validating many ancient facts held true by spiritualists. So the world is undergoing a spiritual revolution which will improve the nature of mankind.

Anirban Bhowal Research: Wireless Communication Communication Lab-1 Email: abhowal@iitg.ac.in