Reflections: Science, Magick, Truth

I wanted to get my thoughts out about the three topics in the post title, reflecting on how I see them, how I experience them, how I define them, to a degree, and their relation to one another, and what I hope to share about them in looking at them here, a discovery I have yet to make, even for myself.

Beginning with science, I want to emphasize what I consider truth, and how science may interoperate with it, truth being the connecting piece for the topics.

I believe in my experiences as outlined in Vedanta, or Advaita Vedanta, which expresses ultimate reality in terms of an absolute which can never be explained or defined in our regular understanding.

It says we are going towards this truth of reality, which it does try and describe, and all of us are going towards it, no matter who we are.

Bringing science into this perspective, the attempt to see it through science will always only be an attempt, because if you can never define or explain what is put forth as real, this reality as put forth by Advaita Vedanta, then science perhaps will just leave it alone and never try.

However, science, its practitioners, do continually try to express an explanation of any and all things, at a fundamental level, whether this be for the beginning of the universe or for the makeup of what has been called matter.

Science, in its own way, tries to define and explain the ultimate understandings of reality. 

Advaita Vedanta and science both at least attempt to explain reality at a most basic and fundamental level like this.

This reality, this absolute, whatever word you use, this I call truth.  This is what I speak of when I refer to truth.

Focusing again on science, it has and puts forth many ideas, or more specifically, theories.

The world of reality in science is one of theories.

Again, the world, as expressed and explained and defined by science, the best explanations we can ever have of it, according to science, are theories.

This it will readily admit, or should, and I mean its practitioners as scientists admit this.

This does not seem too far from the inexpressible truth that Advaita Vedanta says is real.

Sharing this now, it seems that science seems the better and safer perspective, to not get too far out there in terms of what we base our lives on, what perspective we live from--if science readily admits all of reality can ever be considered a perspective of theory, never provable, then why not live from here versus an ancient understanding supposedly knowing reality, which admits itself at the same time that no one can ever express it?

Taking this further, in answer to the question above, the ancient scriptures of Advaita Vedanta do say we can know ultimate reality, we ourselves can.  Even if we cannot express it.

That is the difference.

Science may never be able to prove anything one-hundred percent, and that is its nature, that is its modus operandi.

However, Advaita Vedanta says that not only can we know reality at its most fundamental level, one-hundred percent, but it invites us to.

Science may one day reach this fundamental level, but any attempts to define it and express it in this world will be frustrated.

The truth of truth is that you cannot be in this world and define it and express it as we would here.  You can approach it, in whatever way and perspective, using whatever methods you like, but this approach will only yield your own unique expression of truth, not a defining expression of it, for all to understand.

Shifting to a practical application of all of this, all of this information shared, perhaps now answering the question of what I hoped to gain from looking at this information, I pull in that symbolic representation I call magick, full of potential ideas, understandings, and yes, misunderstandings, but I have felt compelled to use this word, make use of this word, make it a symbolic reference for us in the West, bridging any gaps between Eastern Advaita Vedanta and Western ideas that may come to mind when I say magick.

The practical application, in my mind, of the ideas of Advaita Vedanta, of the truth we can fully know, if not fully express, becomes expressed in magick.

The expression of the universe that we do know, in a limited way, can be called Maya in Advaita Vedanta or Eastern understandings.  If we are the universe itself, as Advaita Vedanta ultimately says we are, and the expression of the universe itself, including ourselves, comes in the form of an almost illusory appearance called Maya, then what does this mean?  How does this fare beside the scientific world of theory, of one needing proof?

If science, as has been shared, can never fully prove anything one-hundred percent, then you have to grant that it goes on the basis of faith, if however small a percentage.

Science will never and can never through its own protocols or parameters prove anything--no facts, just theories in the world of science.

Through my own experience I have known the reality of Advaita Vedanta, touched on it briefly, at the very least, while living in the world, on this earth.

I would rather choose and do wholeheartedly choose the path of Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate reality I have known in some way through my own experience, versus a blind allegiance to more illusion through the world of theory, of science.

There no more should be a world of science than there should be a world of any one approach to solving problems, any one approach to living your life, any one approach to going about what feels right and is right to you in your own experience.

Simply put, to wrap up any loose ends in the topics explored here, science becomes a method of solving problems, of thinking, of hopefully making things right, or more comfortable or more amenable, for who we are as a people living on this earth.

But it just ultimately becomes one way, one approach.  It is like making one tool in your tool belt the only tool you ever use, at the expense of any other.

Your own experience with respect for others, if you want to do it like that, should be the guiding scientific method or approach to what is right for you as a person, for what you choose.

If we solely lived in a world of science, how could anyone realistically do anything without having to check so much on outside authority?  To even brush your teeth safely, walk your dog, walk out of your house even, or even now safely talk to someone else, science would become the ultimate authority to turn to for any and all things.

Does this seem right?

Magick, I have said, becomes the practical application of what I have been exploring here, and I will echo that again.

There was a time when science as we know it was not the only approach to solving and working through problems and knowing things, and to connect this with magick, and this with traditional Tantra, I will share with you now the topic of an upcoming post: alchemy.

I have found this so interesting and heartening in the Western history of ideas and problem-solving approaches, that we at one point had a method which was more holistic, incorporated more of our whole being, in going about thinking and living, for reaching for our best on this earth.

If I say magick becomes a practical application of Advaita Vedanta, then I say alchemy touched on its ultimate ideals.

This along with Tantra, together, in another post.