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The Need for both Outer and Inner Sciences
Clearly, the outer or material science has its value in helping us to understand and utilize the forces of the outer world. It gives us better technology which can make our lives easier. But when it comes to the inner world, scientific knowledge is often either indirect or misleading. For the inner knowledge, we need to cultivate the yogic sciences with their understanding not only of the physical universe but of the subtle forces behind the senses and of our true nature beyond time and space.
After all the ultimate questions of human life, whether at a personal or a scientific level, are – “What in us can survive death?”and ” How can we gain immortality?” Religions ordinary try to answer such question by faiths, telling us to believe in something of this nature but not showing us how to directly perceive it for ourselves. Yogic science and similar forms of mysticism show us how to know the immortal and eternal in our own minds and hearts. This means that however practical the outer sciences may be for dealing with the external world, our deeper human quest is best addressed through the inner sciences.
Important Vedic Sciences
Vedic Sciences include both subtle or occult sciences like astrology and the inner science of Self-knowledge through Yoga and Vedanta. Yet it sees all sciences as related. All knowledge is ultimately self-knowledge. Our true self is not merely the human or psychological self but the universal Self. Each one of us is a unique manifestation of the universal consciousness, a human embodiment of it, but our true being is one with the entire universe, with all beings, and ultimately with the Absolute beyond all time and space (Parabrahman). The key even to understanding medicine or physics is to look at the forces of the universe as existing both within and around us as powers of consciousness – to our true being in the universe and the entire universe within ourselves.
Yogic Science
Yoga in the classical sense is the practical means of developing the meditative mind to allow for direct perception of truth. As such, it is the basis of all the inner or Vedic sciences. Vyasa, the main ancient commentator on Patanjalis Yoga Sutras, the most important classical text on Yoga, defines Yoga as samadhi or the mind free of conditioning and preconception, the mind in a state of deep meditation. The Yoga Sutras begin with Samadhi Pada or the section dealing with Samadhi. The third and fourth sections of the book also deal mainly with Samyama, which is the joint practice of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
In the third section of the Yoga Sutras, different forms of knowledge gained by Samadhi are outlined. These include meditations on objects from sites in one’s own body to the forces of nature that reveal both the nature of the universe and can grant superhuman powers. The greatest knowledge that can be revealed by samadhi is that of the Purusha, which is not only our true Self but the Self of the universe and yet, in its own nature, is beyond all manifestation.
The field of Yogic science is vast. It includes practices like asana, pranayama, ritual, mantra and meditation. It can reveal knowledge not only of our ordinary body and mind, but of all aspects of the collective and cosmic minds, extending to the very processes of creation. Yoga contains special ways of knowledge relative to the body, mind, prana, senses and consciousness internally and to the powers of energy, light, matter and space externally.
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