Modern science demands empirical evidence from proponents of an idea before entertaining the possibility that what is being proposed has a shred of credibility. Yet, modern science entertains the idea that the universe began with a big bang and that all life evolved from the output of that bang through a series of random events.
If you think about it, the big bang theory proposes the creation of the universe from a creative nothingness. After all, something had to trigger that big bang which showered the universe with stardust. In other words, the universe and everything in it is a manifestation of an indescribable nothingness.
That indescribable nothingness sounds a lot like that which Lao Tzu termed the Tao, and what mystics of all faiths call the divine.
The body may be made of stardust, as astrophysicists are wont to tell us, but like every other living thing it also returns to dust when it dies, while whatever animated the body returns to the nothingness from which it arose.
The difference between those living according to the beliefs of science and those living a life of faith is that those living a life of faith allow for the possibility of the divine. They allow for the existence of spiritual dimensions beyond the senses of the body, beyond the known physical world. That’s why it’s called a life of faith.
Those adhering to the logic of the rational scientific mind believe they are their bodies and that life ends at death. For them, there is nothing beyond the physical universe so there is no possibility of an afterlife.
People of faith believe they are spirits or souls with bodies for the purposes of being human in the physical dimension and that death is a transition into the spiritual, a return to the divine or creative nothingness from which they came into physical reality.
Mystics believe life has a purpose beyond the physical dimension. The evidence generated by human activity, however, suggests that the rational scientific mind believes the purpose of human life is to bring about the destruction of all life on the planet – fossil fuel induced global warming, plastic pollution, destruction of habitat, and warfare are a few of the things humanity seems determined to pursue despite their cost to life on the planet.
When we listen to the voices of indigenous cultures – something we haven’t done for a long time in the rational thinking West – we hear them saying the same thing as the mystics – that life is filled with the energy of the creative nothingness and all living things are connected in a web of life that dances to the music of the divine.
Science gives us the technology and knowledge which underpin our current lifestyle but the rational mind of science is closed to the mysteries of life, to the creative nothingness which manifests as the universe and everything in it. Mysticism provides a pathway to the creative nothingness which is the ground of all being, and is open to anyone interested in the mysteries of life.
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