Microsoft Word - Taimni - The Science of Yoga.doc

faculties and cannot be brought about by an intellectual process of reasoning imposed
from without, still, let us consider man in time and space and see whether his circum-
stances justify the extraordinary complacency which we find out only among the
common people but also among the so-called philosophers.
Let us first consider man in space. In giving us a true picture of man in the
physical Universe of which he is a part nothing has helped us so much as the discover-
ies of modern Science. Even before man could use a telescope the vision of the sky at
night filled him with awe and wonder at the immensity of the Universe of which he
was an insignificant part. But the researches of astronomers have shown that the
physical Universe is almost unbelievably larger than what it appears to the naked eye.
The 6,000 stars that are within the range of our unaided vision form, according to Sci-
ence, a group which is only one among at least a billion other groups which stretch out
to infinity in every direction. Astronomers have made a rough calculation of the num-
ber of stars that are within the range of the high-powered telescopes available these
days and think there may be as many as 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, some
smaller than our sun and others very much bigger. This galaxy which is only one of
100,000 already definitely known to astronomers is so vast that light with a speed of
186,000 miles per second takes about 100,000 years to travel from one side to the
other. In this vast ‘known’ Universe even our Solar system with its maximum orbital
(of planets) diameter of 7 billion miles occupies an insignificant place by comparison.
Narrowing down our vision to the Solar system we again find that the earth occupies
only an insignificant place in the huge distances that are involved. It has a diameter of
8,000 miles compared with 865,000 miles of the sun and moves slowly in its orbit
round the sun at an approximate distance of 93 million miles. Coining down still fur-
ther to our earth we find man occupying an insignificant position as far as his physical
body is considered. A microbe moving over the surface of a big school globe is physi-
cally a formidable object in comparison with man moving over the surface of the earth.
This is the awful picture that Science gives of man in the physical Universe, but
so great is the illusion of Maya and the complacence which it engenders that we not
only do not wonder about human life and tremble at our destiny but go through life
engrossed in our petty pursuits, and sometimes even obsessed with a sense of self-
importance. Even the scientists who scan this vast Universe every night with their tele-
scopes remain unaware of the profound significance of what they see.