Sunday, August 26, 2012

You are the river: An interview with Ken Wilber

Can Science locate my Dog?




East is East and West is West is West and Twain shall never meet " In the same vein can Science and Spirituality ever meet? In an enlightening interview with Ken Wilber he dwells upon eternal question of Experience vs Experiment. Can human experience be subject to scientific scrutiny and if not what is the basis of spiritual experiences? How is new age spirituality drawing richly from mystical experiences of non dual awareness different from erstwhile mythical belief system.

 Ken wilber talks about his own Near Death Experience of non dual awareness. Critical of.a Quantum Physicist view of existence which says consciuosness creates its own reality, he says the ground of being is the source and there is a real objective world existing irrespective of subjective perceivers such as human beings.Most renowned scientists such as schrodinger or Einstein or Heisenberg had mystical experiences when they realized the limitations of science.

 Is human existence just a 5 pound of brain matter ? Is mind the same as brain? Ultimately the sense of being void of all transient labels is the primordial existence. Call it pure consciousness or call it I AM THAT or emptiness. But can the experience of such an unconditioned existence ever captured for scientific scrutiny? Science can locate an inanimate planet in the universe with precision but can it ever predict where my dog is likely to be in the next two minutes?

 Here`s is the interview of Ken Wilber: www.salon.com/2008/04/28/ken_wilber