Why even scientists are superstitious
Questioner: Hi sir, I am Devendra. I am doing a PhD in particle physics. So, it’s been a great honor to be a part of IISc Bangalore, and no doubt it’s been a greater part of being a Gita Samagam student for the last two years. So, it’s been great working with outstanding researchers at IISc Bangalore, and it’s been a great experience.
But my question is about those outstanding researchers itself. When I see those researchers, and also me together; I see that they are brutally honest and rigorous in their labs, at their workplace. But when they step out from the department or from their workplace, I see that they are highly conformist. They are as dogmatic as the normal person we see around us.
So, I see this thing as an anomaly, or rather a dissonance, because how can the same critical mind be so superstitious in one place, and when he goes to some other place or some other part of life, it feels to me the reel like, Ek dam se zindagi badal gayi, jazbaat badal gaye, all this. So, I want clarity about this problem.
Thank you.
Acharya Prashant: You see, the self, the ego, it can be critical or curious for two very different reasons, actually from two very different centers. One is curiosity has been an evolutionary enabler, right? If you look at animals, even they are curious. Those who have seen rabbits would definitely note the remarkable twitching of the nose. It is continuously sensing, sniffing. And the movement of those cute earlobes.
Why is the rabbit continuously curious? Because that’s what is needed for its physical, biological survival and evolutionary progress. Otherwise, it’s gone. Ditto for all other animals. All of them are curious in their own ways. Look at a cow, a dog, or any other creature in the jungle, they are just doing the same thing.
So there is one kind of curiosity. And given that human beings, we have a greater brain-to-body-mass ratio, and a different kind of configuration that our species has, so that same curiosity, enabled and reinforced with that configuration, takes the name of deeper inquiry, investigation, even research. So that is one center, one line of curiosity.
In that line, what you see in big labs, in some of the big exploratory missions, in some of the big scientific names, is nothing but the same old kind of evolutionary curiosity, just amplified. The rabbit is doing the same thing at its level, and the scientist is doing much the same thing at his level. It’s just that the degree is a thousand times more. Yes, the degree is much more, but the dimension is the same. This is one kind of inquiry.
The other center is when I’m not looking out for survival or progress, or for just unknown reasons. Maybe I’m not venturing out, or exploring, or investigating because I want money, possible. It is also possible that it’s not for physical survival that I am curious about the universe. That is also possible.
But at the same time, even though the reason is not monetary, not physical, it is still not known. I’m curious, but if asked, “Why exactly do you want to know, or learn, or explore?” I have no real answer. And if there is no real answer, then an answer is given, and the answer is already ascertained. Then you are coming from a point within your biology. That’s the answer. That’s the default.
If there is no conscious point behind your choices or actions, then the default point is biology. The other center is when you are coming from an illuminated point that wants to know, not because it does not know why it wants to know, but because it is interested in knowing, and therefore the knower itself.
You see, if I’m coming from a dark point, which means I’m starting from a point that I do not know, then I’m starting from an unknown knower. Is that clear? If I do not know why I look at the world this way, using a microscope or a telescope, it doesn’t matter, but I’m looking outwards this way and I do not know where I’m coming from, then I’m coming from a dark point, right? And the dark point is the knower itself, because it is the knower who is at the beginning of knowing.
The other kind of knowing is when the knower is interested in the knower itself, the knower is interested in the knower itself. So, if you’re a Gita Samagam student, you would remember that just last week or so we were talking about the existentialists, and we talked about Martin Heidegger then, right?
You remember? Dasein, being interested in Being itself: the knower who wants to know the knower itself. Now, that’s a totally different point of inquiry to begin from, absolutely different. Though the path might look much the same, just as you can have two adjacent houses, one dark and the other illuminated, right? And then a road starts from in front of them, and somebody is walking on the road. You look at him, it will be very difficult for you to tell which of the houses he’s coming from, because the houses are adjacent. But the houses, even though adjacent, differ greatly in their nature.
Most of us look outwards for reasons of security, of prestige, because we want to have career progress, or because we are just curious and we do not even know what’s behind the curiosity. And then there are those who want to know the curious one itself.
What’s the great difference between these two centers? The first one will lead a divided existence, as you said, because all his inquiry is directed outwards. So he will perform science, but not be scientific. These are two very different things. To do science is one thing; to be science is another thing.
And science does not refer only to particle physics, the area of your interest. Any field that involves logical, honest inquiry is science. Psychology is science, right? So you’ll have a lot of people doing all these things who will be logically very rigorous in their external world. But internally, you would find them captive to superstitions, all kinds of primitive beliefs, biological impulses. That is because the very center they inquire from remains unexamined.
Yes, science for them remains just an action. The arrow of science does not point inward. They do not know, “Why at all must I know?” They do not want to know, “Why am I so interested, for example, in a new subatomic particle? Why do I want to know that? What’s the reason?”
And if you do not know why you want to know, then there is very little difference between you and the rabbit. The rabbit is, in fact, biologically more curious than we are. The rabbit is continuously curious, even while it sleeps. And we know why it’s curious. It needs food, and it’s very, very afraid. That’s why it’s constantly alert, and it wants to make sense of its surroundings, what’s going on? You leave it in a new place, and the first thing it will do is continuously try to map the area. What’s the terrain? Where can danger come from? What’s happening? What kind of temperature? What kind of predators? What kind of food supply?
So there is nothing great about that. It’s a very common observation. One could be in the field of data analytics, one could be a finance specialist, one could be a top-notch researcher, one could be a great mathematician, and yet one could be inwardly carrying very primitive kinds of baggage, superstitions, beliefs, and whatnot.
So even as you practice science and you perform science, you must also ask, “What within me wants to look outwards, and does it also have an equal keenness to look inward at itself?” It’s a big myth, a huge superstition, that science can cure superstition. A lot of people think that way. It’s wishful thinking. They say, “Bring scientific education, and superstition will be eradicated.”
No, sir. Only very superficial superstition will be eradicated by science.
For example, if someone believes; give me an example of superstition, that kittens drop from the sky. People believe in all kinds of things: kittens drop from the sky. Now, this kind of gross superstition probably can be taken care of by the scientific way. You can conduct an experiment, then a demonstration, and show the entire process of the physical birth of kittens, and then you can challenge the myth that kittens drop from the sky.
Or if people believe that eclipses happen because a great monster blocks the sunlight from reaching the moon, let say, then again, you can have an experiment, a demonstration, and some kind of scientific proof showing how eclipses really do happen, and you can take care of that.
But you will not be able to take care of the point that is very eager to endorse superstition, and that is the point within us. The ego is the mother superstition. The ego itself gives birth to all kinds of superstition and then nurtures them. Therefore, do not be surprised if you find even scientists being extremely superstitious in their personal lives.
What is superstition? Believing without knowing, right? I am, I exist, I have desires, and I believe in them, and I play by them, and I live for them. But I do not know who I am, and where my desires and fears come from. Is that not superstition? You’re not just believing in something, you have made it your entire life, and you do not know what it is. What can be a bigger superstition?
Questioner: So here comes the follow-up. You have divided the two crucial centers of ego. So when the dark center that you mentioned is being operated. At the same pace when the dark-center ego is inquiring into something, of course, he is being, like I said, rigorous or brutally honest. So isn’t he, during the process of honesty, whatever he is doing in his lab or whatever, isn’t that a sort of self-inquiry?
Acharya Prashant: No, because the arrow of honesty will not boomerang. Who is the shooter? Who is the archer? There is a purpose why he is shooting outward. The arrow is meant to travel away from the shooter, and it will keep traveling away from the shooter. It will not boomerang and come back to the shooter.
That’s not what the arrow is fundamentally designed for. The arrow cannot go against its own design.
You see, I am a thief. And thieves can be a very curious lot, more curious than householders. So the thief is surveying the house he intends to break into, right? He’s very curious, and he might be very particular. He is very meticulously noting the cracks in the walls and doing all those things. But what’s the purpose? And would registering any of those cracks, or drawing any of those maps, ever make the thief question his own self and intent? Please tell me, has that happened? Can that ever happen? That won’t happen.
But for professional success, the thief will need to be very rigorous; otherwise, the thief would be caught. Are you getting it? The thief needs to be very particular, very immaculate, very rigorous, very accurate in his measurements and movements; otherwise, he’s gone. So in that way, the thief is a great practitioner of a particular method. He follows logic. He even follows science. He’s careful. He’s alert. He does not fudge his observations. He does all those things.
But that observation, coming from that dark center, will never take a U-turn and make the thief look into a mirror. So you are so particular about that (pointing towards the outside), but are you even one percent particular about this (pointing towards oneself)? That won’t happen.
So it is very, very possible that you are scientifically rigorous, honest, the word you used; but that honesty does not take a U-turn and become internal light.
Questioner: So, one more, last, sorry. In one of the sessions, you have said that there is a minute, or even minuscule, difference between Ramana Maharshi and Albert Einstein in terms of self-inquiry and all these things. So maybe the context can be different in that case.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah. I mean, in one context I’ll say the difference is hair's width. In another context, I’ll say they are poles apart, because one is investigating the speed of light outside, and the other one is interested in the light within.
Questioner: Thanks.
