Today, we are experiencing a growing trend in the scientific community toward unifying and interconnecting multiple fields of science, especially in light of the increased efforts to unify the theories and fields of physics. Also, more scientists are actively integrating their discoveries with environmental, ethical and spiritual pursuits.
Enlightened science supports these unification trends with a simple tenet:
existence is fundamentally interconnected - throughout all physical reality, all forms of consciousness and all ways of knowing.
To describe a unified framework for reality, leading physicists are developing their
Theory of Everything. Leading philosophers suggest that the Theory of Everything needs to go beyond physical science by encompassing all ways of knowing, including subjective knowing.
How do we integrate subjective knowing with modern science? By first recognizing that subjective knowing meets all the criteria of science - in that it is measurable, repeatable, predictive and exists as a shared experience. If we view subjective experience as "the science within", we can employ the scientific method in a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates the modern sciences with spiritual, subjective and innate ways of knowing.
Indigenous Integrated Worldview
The term "worldview" originates from the German word "Weltanschauung" meaning a "look onto the world". It refers to the framework through which an individual interprets the world and interacts in it. A worldview provides a basis for generating, sustaining and applying knowledge. (Wikipedia: Worldview)
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In tribal cultures, myths and traditions act as the framework for indigenous knowledge. In this way, tribal culture provides a basis for knowing the observable world as an integral aspect of the "unseen" world or spirit world.
As indigenous cultures gave way to modern cultures, enchantment started to leave "reality" and a profound schism began to divide the psyche of humankind. Eventually, objective perception, which found "fact" in modern science, became separated from subjective perception, which found "faith" in modern religion. Because of its integration of mythic, intuitive and spiritual ways of knowing, indigenous knowledge is
not considered scientific by the modern western worldview.
However, there are forms of indigenous knowledge that can be considered scientific in that they are "systematic or exact, recorded knowledge". This
indigenous science is embedded and recorded in the very language of a culture, in its stories and practices – all of which are reproduced accurately through many generations.
The belief that only western empiricism is rigorous enough for advanced observations and engineering is clearly proven false by the sciences employed across the Mayan and the Egyptian cultures. These cultures show that advanced science can coexist with the innate and indigenous ways of knowing.
Ideal Soil for Growing Enlightened Science
Today, more and more people are losing faith in the dominant materialistic ideologies that continue to produce bleaker realities, such as war, environmental destruction, economic strife, etc. When we are not working for money, our "free" time is often spent being distracted by institutionalized mass media that "dumbs us down" with immediate polarization rather than conscious integration of issues, ideas and beliefs. Increasingly, we realize how these polarizing views fail to generate freedom and wellbeing in our lives.
In the dominant western worldview, the need to separate science from spirituality is so ingrained that most people take pride in doing so. Few people recognize that by separating external-objective knowledge from internal-subjective knowledge, we have chosen to create schizophrenia in our worldview, and this may be the single most debilitating choice that our species has made.
What if we viewed humanity as a child coming of age and learning its role in the larger universal creation? How would we encourage people to view the story of their species within the larger story of an entire living universe? From this perspective, the tragedies caused by modern day worldviews become the necessary lessons and catalysts for initiating a dramatic maturing into universal consciousness.
The disastrous consequences of widespread exclusionary and parasitic worldviews are directly upon us. No longer can we choose to survive. Now we must truly thrive, by discovering and embracing universal enlightened truths. The truths that reconcile science and spirituality, that reveal outer and inner nature as one. In this way, we re-member our heart with our mind, and with the rigor of modern science, we will reveal a cohesive spiritual-science that is undeniable and universal.
Enlightened Science seeks to illuminate an interconnected, living universe, and to evolve processes that generate greater individual and planetary wellbeing. From this vibrant-enlightened place, we become conscious co-creators of the positive reality that we all innately yearn for.
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day” (Thomas Jefferson).
