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  3. Shakti vs. Natural Sciences

Shakti vs. Natural Sciences

May 1, 2020 Balagangadhara , real hipkapi

You say that you experienced Shakti as an emanation of a force that is overpowering and palpable; you also say that you felt the ‘presence’ of Shakti strongly. These two sentences make one think that you felt the presence of the force. In that case, there are only two routes open to us: (a) either reject that we have knowledge of the world which forbids linguistic utterances from infusing material objects with ‘life’ forces that can have causal impact in the world; (b) or ‘downgrade’ science as knowledge of the world by allowing ‘spiritual’ (or supra-mundane) worlds to causally interact with the ‘physical’ world. Your own process of thinking about this experience is rigidly hemmed in by these alternatives. Neither, I think, is what you are seeking. If you are, you cannot and will not find what you seek, even if it is to merely figure out your experience.

What other choice do you have? Stop using the learnt modes of talking about your experience. Do not speak in terms of ‘force’, Shakti, and such like. Choose words and phrases carefully and in ways that do not openly and explicitly violate our knowledge of the world, unless you have alternative descriptions of this world that are better than what sciences teach us today. Do not transgress the boundaries of knowledge casually. (Your description does precisely that. You can, of course, challenge our current understanding in physics and biology. However, there are very strict conditions put on what such challenges, if they are to be taken seriously, should do and should be capable of doing. A particular description of an individual psychological experience is not a serious challenge to knowledge at all. If anything, it is utterly frivolous. If you really ‘love to understand what exactly happens’, please remember that, in that case, you are seeking knowledge. You will not get knowledge, if you carelessly and casually transgress the conditions that alone can give you the knowledge you seek.)

How could you formulate your experience differently then? Stick to what you went through. You saw (or participated in) an event and you felt some kind of presence. Your question is about what you felt and experienced. And whether this had anything to do with the nature of the event itself or whether it was a mere psychological idiosyncrasy of yourself. No Shakti’s, no mantras and no forces are required in this case. A simple question from someone who simply seeks to know. You think you can do this?

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