I dreamed that in myself the world I saw,

Wherein three Angels strove for mastery. Law

Was one, clear vision and denial cold,

Yet in her limits strong, presumptuous, bold;

The second with enthusiasm bright,

Flame in her heart but round her brows the night,

Faded as this advanced. She could not bear

That searching gaze, nor the strong chilling air

These thoughts created, nourishing our parts

Of mind, but petrifying human hearts.

Science was one, the other gave her name,

Religion. But a third behind them came,

Veiled, vague, remote, and had as yet no right

Upon the world, but lived in her own light.

Wide were the victories of the Angel proud

Who conquered now and in her praise were loud

The nations. Few even yet to the other clove,— 

And some were souls of night and some were souls of love.

But this was confident and throned. Her heralds ranged

Claiming that night was dead and all things changed;

For all things opened, all seemed clear, seemed bright—

Save the vast ranges that they left in night.

However, the light they shed upon the earth

Was great indeed, a firm and mighty birth.

A century’s progress lived before my eyes.

Delivered from amazement and surprise,

Man’s spirit measuring his worlds around

The laws of sight divined and laws of sound.

Light was not hidden from its searching gaze,

Nor matter could deny her myriad maze

To the cold enquiry; for the far came near,

The small loomed large, the intricate grew clear.

Measuring and probing the strong Angel strode,

Dissolving and combining, till she trod

Firmly among the stars, could weigh their forms,

Foretold the earthquakes, analysed the storms.

Doubt seemed to end and wonder’s reign was closed.

The stony pages of the earth disclosed 

Their unremembered secrets. Horses of steam

Were bitted and the lightnings made a team

To draw our chariots. Heaven was scaled at last

And the loud seas subdued. Distance, resigned

Its strong obstructions to the mastering mind.

So moved that spirit trampling; then it laid

Its hand at last upon itself, how this was made

Wondering, and sought to class and sought to trace

Mind by its forms, the wearer by the dress.

Then the other arose and met that spirit robust,

Who laboured; she now grew a shade who must

Fade wholly away, yet to her fellow cried,

“I pass, for thou hast laboured well and wide.

Thou thinkest term and end for thee are not;

But though thy pride is great, thou hast forgot

The, Sphinx that waits for man beside the way.

All questions thou mayst answer, but one day

Her question shall await thee. That reply,

As all we must; for they, who cannot, die.

She slays them and their mangled bodies lie

Upon the highways of eternity.

Therefore, if thou wouldst live, know first this thing,

Who thou art in this dungeon labouring.”

And Science confidently, “Nothing am I but earth,

Tissue and nerve and from the seed a birth,

A mould, a plasm, a gas, a little that is much.

In these grey cells that quiver to each touch

The secret lies of man; they are the thing called I.

Matter insists and matter makes reply.

Shakespeare was this; this force in Jesus yearned

And conquered by the cross; this only learned.

The secret of the suns that blaze afar;

This was Napoleon’s giant mind of war.”

I heard and marvelled in myself to see

The infinite deny infinity.

Yet the weird paradox seemed justified;

Even mysticism shrank out-mystified.

But the third Angel came and touched my eyes;

I saw the mornings of the future rise,

I heard the voices of an age unborn 

That comes behind us and our pallid morn,

And from the heart of an approaching light

One said to man, “Know thyself infinite,

Who shalt do mightier miracles than these,

Infinite, moving mid infinities.”

Then from our hills the ancient answer pealed,

“For Thou, O Splendour, art myself concealed,

And the grey cell contains me not, the star

I outmeasure and am older than the elements are.

Whether on earth or far beyond the sun,

I, stumbling, clouded, am the Eternal One.”

(Collected Poems, pp. 42-44)

This poem was written by Sri Aurobindo a little more than a hundred years ago (sometime during the period 1895-1908), but the basic foundational points it is making are universally valid even today. Let us also read along with this poem two of his letters written in the 1930s. These are given in the following. (Letters on Yoga, pp. 205-07)

If in our eagerness we should make attempts to thrust metaphysical conclusions into scientific facts or findings, then there are bound to be objections raised by the purists of science. Fortunately today’s genuine purists do recognize that it is wrong on their part also to discredit religious spirit and the metaphysics of life and thought which are perhaps attempts to find truths of another kind and in another way, truths that are beyond the means of scientific pursuit. A degree of openness has certainly come, but it is in the nature of the pragmatics, of exclusiveness arising from the respective or highly restricted tools of knowledge. These have to become more and more intense to embrace the possibilities of the intuitive-perceptive cognition and possibly also go beyond, particularly when the revelatory knowledge can lead us to the Truth of Things and to the Things of Truth.

I think X bases his ideas on the attempt of Jeans, Eddington and other English scientists to thrust metaphysical conclusions into scientific facts; it is necessary that he should appreciate fully the objections of more austerely scientific minds to such a mixture. Moreover, spiritual seeking has its own accumulated knowledge which does not depend in the least on the theories or discoveries of science in the purely physical sphere. X's attempt like that of Jeans and others is a reaction against the illegitimate attempts of some scientific minds in the nineteenth century and of many others who took advantage of the march of scientific discovery to discredit or abolish as far as possible the religious spirit and to discredit also metaphysics as a cloudy verbiage, exalting science as the only clue to the truth of the universe. But I think that attitude is now dead or moribund; the scientists recognise, as you point out, the limits of their sphere. I may observe that the conflict between religion and science never arose in India (until the days of European education) because religion did not interfere with scientific discovery and scientists did not question religious or spiritual truth because the two things were kept on separate but not opposing lines.

The defect in what X writes about Science seems to be that he is insisting vehemently on the idea that Science is still materialistic or at least that scientists, Jeans and Eddington excepted, are still fundamentally materialists. This is not the fact. Most continental scientists have now renounced the idea that Science can explain the fundamentals of existence. They hold that Science is only concerned with process and not with fundamentals. They declare that it is not the business of Science nor is it within its means to decide anything about the great questions which concern philosophy and religion. This is the enormous change which the latest developments of Science have brought about. Science itself nowadays is neither materialistic nor idealistic. The rock on which materialism was built and which in the 19th century seemed unshakable has now been shattered. Materialism has now become a philosophical speculation just like any other theory; it cannot claim to found itself on a sort of infallible Biblical authority, based on the facts and conclusions of Science. This change can be felt by one like myself who grew up in the heyday of absolute rule of scientific materialism in the 19th century. The way which had been almost entirely barred, except by rebellion, now lies wide open to spiritual truths, spiritual ideas, spiritual experiences. That is the real revolution. Mentalism is only a half-way house, but mentalism and vitalism are now perfectly possible as hypotheses based on the facts of existence, scientific facts as well as any others. The facts of Science do not compel anyone to take any particular philosophical direction. They are now neutral and can even be used on one side or another though most scientists do not consider such a use as admissible. Nobody here ever said that the new discoveries of Physics supported the ideas of religion or churches; they merely contended that Science had lost its old materialistic dogmatism and moved away by a revolutionary change from its old moorings.

It is this change which I expected and prophesied in my poems in the first Ahana volume, A Vision of Science and In the Moonlight.