The Apotheosis of Science and Technology

“I stress this point because, in our time, there are millions of people who have lost faith in any kind of religion. Such people do not understand their religion any longer. While life runs smoothly without religion, the loss remains as good as unnoticed. But when suffering comes, it is another matter. That is when people begin to seek a way out and to reflect about the meaning of life and its bewildering and painful experiences.” [emphasis mine]

– C.G. Jung [19]

Unfortunately, this new Western approach to life, which that avatar of history, Arnold J. Toynbee, has befittingly called ‘the apotheosis of science and technology’; has entailed a turning of one’s back completely on the humanistic spheres of religion and the spiritual-flowering of man. Thus, the ‘misperception’ of the rationalists has taken the form of a spiritual-impoverishment and blindness to the religious & spiritual dimensions of human life. As Vedic astrology is set in the spiritual-framework of the Vedas, it should not come as a surprise to us that such a system of astrology is not only unintelligible to the rationalists; it could also be highly provocative for this very reason-since the intellect, which can never accept spiritual-reality, is the only instrument of investigation, at the disposal of the rationalists.

If our votaries of Vedic astrology had more clarity, as to what Vedic astrology is all about, then they would have proudly and ably defended their system of astrology and educated the rationalists in the process. This brings up before us the very important question of educating the votaries of Vedic astrology in the first place. Once this is done, the education of the rationalists would follow as a matter of course, for this challenge would be automatically taken up by the votaries of astrology themselves.

The votaries of Vedic astrology, when they come to knock on the doors of the astrological websites, have a choice. If we are honest at all, we must admit that the majority of these votaries, must necessarily suffer from a lack of conviction and abiding faith, in so far as the problem-solving-power of Vedic astrology is concerned. We do not say, their half-knowledge and their lack of clarity is due to their own intellectual & spiritual inadequacy. No! Rather, we maintain that, as in the present epoch of the Hindu civilization, as Hindu society continues to be debilitated and still very much under the cultural onslaughts of the continuing process of world-wide Westernization; especially, the English-educated Hindus necessarily suffer from an alienation from their own Sanatana Dharma and its various systems of subtle spiritual-knowledge. [See also Sec.2. of Part II]

This unhappy situation can, however be remedied, as soon as individual Hindus and seekers alike turn their spiritual attention inwards, into their own consciousness and thereby recover the long-lost connection with their soul or Atma. Once this most important milestone in their inner spiritual-journey into self-knowing and being comes to pass, then it is only a matter of some more time, before the English-educated Hindus & seekers become awakened to the priceless spiritual treasures of humanity’s spiritual ancestors- the Vedic Rishis [2,3,4,5,6].