The age of scientific materialism brought with it the myth of objectivity. Only that which the physical senses could grasp was real. Only that which the mind could measure and calculate was true. Suddenly a whole world of human experience was blotted out of existence, — or else reduced to fiction, imagination, hallucination, a non-existent ‘something’ that temporarily superimposed itself on the mind and senses as reality. The only hard fact was matter; the only evidence was that which could be examined, measured and analysed, by the physical senses and physical mind.
Thus the scientist set the sails of his ship in the sea of matter hoping to reach the ultimate shores with physical senses as his guide. Exploring and plumbing the depths of matter he went on amassing riches and powers and knowledge to comfort and caress his careworn brow. Thus he continued until his boat tumbled over the edge of matter and suddenly the real began to appear a myth and fact began to assume the form of a fiction.
Today the scientist stands on such a borderland where fact and fiction, reality and myths meet and melt into each other. A new world is appearing before his view, a world where the subjective and objective fuse and are seen as two sides or two aspects of one Reality.
This is the first step, an infant step though, that takes our science from a divisive reductionist model to a unifying integral vision of Reality. The journey is not yet over. It is only a small peep through the keyhole of matter into the wonderland that invites and awaits our discovery, a wonderland at once delightful and dangerous, charming and confusing. Huge continents await us in this new world and emerge before our sight even as the old fades and slips below our feet. As we enter past these forbidden doors we need to remember a great formula of wisdom:
“For nothing is known while aught remains, concealed;
The Truth is known only when all is seen.”1
1Sri Aurobindo. Savitri. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1970, p.257.
