Open Writing

When it gets dark, you just reach out and switch on the light. As long as its supply is available, the wiring and the bulbs are in working order; electricity will flow whether you are a humble labourer or an influential billionaire, an illiterate person or a University professor. Science does not bother about the individual. That is the basic quality of science.

When you close your eyes and look inside yourself, you are lost in darkness. Groping around this black hole, you are totally lost. You cannot not find any ways, methods, means, systems, techniques or processes to find light - unless you transform yourself, change yourself, drop the old and become open for the unknowable. Spirituality is concerned about the individual. That is the basic quality of spirituality.

Science believes that the individual can attain the truth as he/she is. Science changes, analyses and breaks up matter. Science works on matter. Spirituality works on the individual - transforming him/her. Einstein remains Einstein even after his discovers his Theory of Relativity. Siddhartha transforms into the Buddha - the Enlightened One - after he becomes one with existence. After becoming Buddha, Siddhartha is no more.

From the Greek philosopher Heraclitius to the German scientist Einstein, science took over 2,000 years to think, analyze, discover and break the atom to release its almost unlimited energy. From the Prince Siddhartha who went to the forest to search for the truth, it took a few years - but in fact, the fraction of a second - when he was transformed into the enlightened Buddha.

Science changes matter to such a state that one can know the unknown. Spirituality transforms an individual to such a state that he/she can discover the unknowable. Science focuses on matter. Spirituality on individual. Science explores matter. Spirituality enlarges awareness. Science searches outside. Spirituality digs inside.

Here are two extremes. How can then they become one? How can Einstein become Buddha? Or Buddha, an Einstein? The East and the West? And, most important of all, why should they become one?

Osho provides all the answers in a new two-volume compilation - Einstein the Buddha. Culled from the vast body of Osho's work, here are the responses from his discourses on this vital question of a meeting of science and spirituality, the East and the West.

The time has come to face this unthinkable issue. Why? Simply because both science and religion have failed miserably. Despite all its grand achievements of reaching the moon and mars, supersonic planes and supercomputers, science has failed mankind. Today, science and technology can provide ample food, homes, clothing, education, health and other basic facilities for everyone on this plant.

And yet, of the world's six billion people, almost half (2.8 billion) live below the poverty line of one dollar a day. In the service of politicians, military generals and industrialists, science and technology has not been able to root out poverty, ignorance, disease and poor living conditions on this plant. Indeed, the poor are getting poorer.

Manipulated by priests and practised as rituals, religion has also failed pathetically. Despite the message of peace, love and brotherhood of mankind preached by all religions, wars and violent conflicts have always remained with us and have now increased many times over. More disturbing, most of these conflicts are rooted firmly in religion. Bombings, bloodshed and destruction are all part of daily news from many parts of the globe.

Osho presents us with a key solution at an individual level. Osho proposes a balance and a harmony of science and spirituality for the individual. Einstein the Buddha. A scientist with a spiritual dimension. No East. No West. Just one earth. One home for man.

This blending of science and spirituality became popular over 25 years ago in a best selling book 'The Tao of Physics', An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism by Fritjof Capra. This was a groundbreaking work that still challenges and inspires the West.

At about the same time, Osho was delivering his discourses on various spiritual masters and paths and he went beyond what Capra highlighted. In addition to making people understand this inner harmony, Osho led them to experience it. Beyond mere theory, Osho created techniques of meditation that can achieve this balance.

Brilliantly and the simplest language possible, Osho explains the two opposites and how they can be balanced in the individual. From re-birth to enlightenment, Tantra and Yoga, Pythagoras to Kabir, he talks about them all. In addition, he answers numerous questions that trouble us in our everyday lives. Some examples: being interdependent and totally selfish, being a woman, being effortless, being vegetarian, the relationship between an Indian man and a Western woman and journalism! Even the trivial become sublime in Osho's words.

Mere words cannot transform. Effort is required to become effortless. Osho's answer is meditation. Osho is not interested in transforming mankind but in transforming the individual with meditation. He says once an individual starts looking inwards, the transformation begins. As an individual changes from within, its effect spreads silently around him/her. Slowly, a magnetic field develops around this person and others become peaceful in his/her presence. People get attracted to what calls a 'Buddhafield' around a person who goes into deep meditation.

Finally, Osho does not stop at the balance between science and spirituality. He goes beyond. He uses the lotus flower to illustrate his approach. A scientist dissects the lotus into its various parts and analyses them to find out their function. A mystic finds the lotus a symbol of enlightenment as Buddha said that enlightenment is the opening of a thousand-petalled lotus. A poet sings praises of its beauty, delicate colour, graceful pattern and many other aspects unseen by an ordinary person.

Osho wants many, many people to be scientists and mystics but if some person can be all three - a scientist, a mystic and a poet - that would be the ultimate harmony.

In the laboratory, the scientist should forget all about spirituality. When he leaves his laboratory and moves outdoors to gaze at the sky and stars, he could become a poet to marvel at them. And when he sits in his meditation chamber, he should forget all about analysis, experiments and move into silence and awareness. He turns inwards now to dispel that unlimited darkness by switching on that inner light.