To promote the latter we have universities and research institutions. But the supreme opportunity for everyone with no exception lies in the first’.

I have discussed earlier the limitations of physical science as well as the limitations of dogma bound religion, and have referred to Swami Vivekananda’s strong plea to subject religion to rational scrutiny. In the wake of the materialistic world-picture of nineteenth- century science, religion came under the attack of not only physical science, but also of a philosophy and of a movement known as rationalism, which has done good work to encourage clear thinking.

The combination of these two, namely religion, or the scientific approach to the ‘within’ of nature, and modern, science or the scientific approach to the ‘without’ of nature, constitutes the complete education for fulfillment for all humanity today. Echoing this conviction in the concluding portion of his Autobiography, astro-physicist R.A.Millikan says;

Apareyam itastvanyam

Prakrtim viddhi me param;

Jiva-bhutam mahabaho

Yayedam dharayate jagat-

This is (My) ordinary nature; but, other than this, knows my higher nature, O mighty-armed (Arjuna), which is of the nature of intelligence and by which this whole universe is sustained’.

Commenting on this statement of Sri Krsna in his comment on the next verse, verse 6 Sankaracarya says:

Prakrti-dvaya-dvarena aham

Sarvajna isvaro jagatah karanam-

Through this twofold nature, I, who am God the all-knowing (being of the nature of pure Consciousness), am the cause of this universe.’

Vedanta has provided the science of religion with an intelligible and international framework of terms and concepts, which help the various religions of the world to understand them, to understand and welcome each other, and to understand and appreciate the physical sciences. This is precisely the service that modern physical science has rendered to all physical or positivistic knowledge. Both thus become, though developed in different countries and in different periods of history, human contributions to knowledge and life fulfilment. In the Gita, Sri Krsna describes the ‘without’ of nature as the aspect of apara prakrti, or ordinary nature, and the ‘within’ of nature as the aspect of para prakrti, or higher nature of the one total divine nature.

Vedanta and all the great spiritual teachers of the world, therefore, always discouraged them. Vivekananda preached Vedanta to de-hypnotise such and other already hypnotized people in the East and the West; ‘Strength, strength is what the Upanisads preach to me from every page,’ he proclaimed. He preferred people becoming atheistic and agnostic to becoming superstitious fools; for the atheist and the agnostic, he said, can still attain freedom, but not those who are weakened by superstition. That is why Sri Krsna preached in the Gita, buddhi yoga, the yoga of reason, as the unfailing guide in life.

The only ‘miracle’ that can match, and also over-match, the great miracles of modern physical sciences is the ‘miracle’ of character produced by pure religion, by the science of spirituality, purity, love, compassion, work-efficiency, dedication and service- these are the wonderful fruits which are produced by the science of religion in us. Gandhiji wrought, and taught, the miracles of transmuting hatred into love and violence into non-violence.