The axiom of reality
It is said of yoga that whatever comes into one’s experience is the only reality. Countless texts exist that expound in great detail the relationship between the human body, the mind, the energy that powers them both, and the universe. However, a perspicacious mind would refuse to accept these theories without demonstrable scientific proof. What is prana? How can it be shown to exist in laboratory conditions? How can it be shown that there are 5 types of prana? Can the act of the pranas slowly leaving the body be demonstrated in a corpse? Such questions dwell, no doubt, in the realm of the mystics and are relegated, by thinkers, to “religion”.
This is a fair approach, albeit the only one known to the studious thinker. By using the mind to analyze itself or the body, the thinker can only make so much progress. Language was invented to describe the world outside, and hence finds itself with glaring gaps when it tries to describe experiences within. Whatever happens in the world outside only simulates itself within the human body. A finite amount of time elapses between an event and its projection onto our senses. Thus, we never witness an event; only its echo. But even to that internal experience we are not privy. Thus, we are unaware how we truly perceive the world.
Of course, probing a rat’s brain as it is stimulated or injecting it with dyes and watching it fluoresce do intimate us about one aspect of the brain, but to truly understand how the mind works in its entirety is beyond the tools of science for the moment.
Let us cast the problem differently: we know, emphatically, that 1 + 1 = 2. That is a given. Even a mere child would laugh at questioning the veracity of that statement. But, to a mathematician, it is no trivial statement. The above must be proven rigorously or else it is not a true statement. The proof for 1 + 1 = 2 starts with Peano’s Postulates and builds up on them to arrive at an elegant solution. These postulates, or axioms, have withstood the test of time, and have been used relatively unchanged since the late 1800s. All modern quantitative fields of science rely on a robust foundation of math. Even studies that show beneficial properties of a certain food rely on statistics to arrive at their conclusions. The entire structure of modern mathematics and the superstructure of all the sciences it supports have been built on theorems which, when we diligently pry them apart and peer inside, reveal a set of axioms. These axioms have been tirelessly supporting the weight of all our intuitions about the universe, superconductors, biology, etc.
But what is an axiom? It is something that is assumed to be true, unless can be proven otherwise. How interesting it is, then, that we agree on rigorous proofs that rest on the ‘belief’ that an axiom somewhere down is true. Does it not require an open mind to assume these axioms are, in fact, true? What is the rationale for not wanting to prove that the axioms are really true? Is it because the collective minds have not been able to disprove an axiom, thus leaving it in default state of true? We trust planes to navigate themselves, our computers to handle our spreadsheets, banks to transfer money…all on the implicit belief that something is quite certainly true, but unsure why.
Extending this thesis that we believe in something we don’t know is true, let us consider what is true: the world we live in. Is it real?
As we blithely glide through our lives, we never stop to ponder if the reality that we perceive is absolute or not.
Let us study this in a little detail. What is reality? How do we know the world, our existence, other’s existences are real? The only funnel of the world outside into ourselves is through our sense organs. Thus, in some simplified fashion, existence as we know it is a five-dimensional continuous stream into our brains.
Our organs merely are sensors; it’s the brain/mind that experiences it along with our memories. If you were to move to a beautiful location, the first few times, the sights and sounds would enamor you and you’d consider yourself blessed to be able to experience it. But once you’ve lived there for a few years, the same sensory data wouldn’t evoke the same awe, because you are perceiving the world through your senses and your memories. This leads to an interesting thought experiment: what if one had no memories? What if one lived in total amnesia, experiencing everything for the first time? Would this be a blissful or a horrific experience?
Focussing on the aspect of senses, we can tunnel a bit deeper. The writer, for one, is colorblind. He cannot discern between certain shades of red, brown, and green, and thus perceives the world in his own unique way. The reason for this condition boils down to certain cone cells, or the lack thereof, in his eyes. Thus, it is evident that having the right set of cone cells would bestow proper vision to him.
Let us go a bit deeper. We can agree that the total number of cone cells in one’s eyes are finite. We can also agree that the distribution of these cones (short, medium, and long) is unique (There has not been a study that looked at the distribution of cone cells across the entire human population. It is safe to assume each one of us has our own distribution). This leads to the conclusion that each individual possesses a unique set (distribution and quantity) of cone cells. Thus, each individual must perceive the light emanating from the world in a subtly unique way.
One could now extend this to the curvature of the lens in the retina, the number of optic nerve fibers, etc. These unique optical attributes decipher the world in a very subjective way. Having been born and raised with this unique set of optical sensory apparatus, the world is ‘learnt’ (and deposited into memories) to be in a certain way for every individual.
Now, an elephant’s or an octopus’ eyes would perceive the world in a different way, and their image of, say, a straight line, would be different from a human’s. Given these facts, the question can be asked: what is reality? What we see as a straight red line can be attributed to: the line is straight (human lens) and it’s red (individual cone distribution). Perhaps, the octopods would beg to differ. So is there a straight red line or is there something else? We could bring out our rulers and other man-made inventions to attempt to be objective, but we would lose focus on the fact that all of them “evolved” with our senses. There is no denial that there exists something. The question simply is: what is it?
We have thus far established that everything that we know scientifically can be upended if any of the axioms turn out to be false. We agree that, at some level, we believe the axioms to be true, but we cannot know if they truly are much in the same way we believe the world around exists, but we cannot truly prove it to be so.
A similar analogy must be afforded to the science of yoga. Given a set of axioms — there exists a etheric/pranic body, karma can be carried across lifespans, there are broadly four aspects to the mind and five sheaths to the body — then we can explain, to a certain degree, the modalities of all life and how, and even why, we exist.
Just as health and behavioral sciences rely on a number of data samples to tease out a trend, we can similarly glean, roughly, the supranormal aspects of human existence from the many people who have shared their experiences.
The thrust of this essay is not to ‘prove’ that theory of yoga is a logical construct akin to, say, Newtonian Physics (which itself dissociates at microscopic scales), but loosen the rigidity that yoga comes enshrouded with as an oriental mystical mumbo-jumbo that has no place in the hallowed corridors of science.
Contributed by Ashwin Mudigonda for Vijnan Archives.
Ashwin is a roboticist by training. In his spare time he writes fiction and explores street photography. He lives in Oakland, CA.
Check out his vibrant gallery at : www.flickr.com/photos/ashwinmudigonda
His publication : https://www.juggernaut.in/books/tantric-exorcist
