The Circle of Fire. The Metaphysics of Yoga

摘要

The author of this book is a medical doctor with keen interest in modern scientific achievements across the board. He accepts the validity of most theories in sciences dealing with the physical world, the processes of life and the nature of mental phenomena, but complains that they do not provide the ultimate explanation for the existence of the world. This, he thinks, can be remedied if traditional Indian religious and philosophical thinking is taken into account. In western thought, the author argues, the progress of science produced an unbridgeable gap between religious faith and scientific knowledge. Thus Darwin's theory of evolution, new theories in physics and astrophysics concerning the nature of matter, space, time and the origin of the universe and the new understanding of biological processes have made untenable, on rational grounds, the idea of a God Creator of the monotheistic religions, which dominated western thought until relatively recently. It would seem, then, that "religion is contradictory to science and that to follow a religion one must give it the indulgence of not opposing it with scientific facts".