Further Reflections on Psychotic Knowledge (cont.)
By Shunyamurti

The ruling approach today is a rigid refusal to recognize the insanity of the ego itself. Yet this rigidity is understandable. It comes from the same mindset that, in biology, leads to the refusal to even consider the possibility of intelligent design being a more rational hypothesis than Darwinism. In that case, the scientistic establishment fears precisely a return to the Middle Ages, and a faith-based approach to matters that we need to deal with scientifically. But has not science in its battle against religion merely become another dogmatic religion?

The religion of science is a belief system without the possibility of transcendence of the ego. Not only must a scientist be an atheist, but also a materialist. Not even Cartesian dualism is allowable—even though there is plenty of evidence that dualism is true, as a matter of subjective experience. For example, in the so-called near-death experience (better thought of as an aborted death experience), consciousness leaves the body and yet continues to exist in non-corporeal form, both in this dimension and in a higher dimension. This phenomenon has been verified thousands of times. Therefore, consciousness is not simply an emergent property of the brain. It is a separate substance. That is dualism. Of course, there may be a resolution of the dualism of consciousness and form at a higher level of understanding, in which even matter is recognized as a manifestation of consciousness. That is the Advaita position. But at the first level of cognition of subtle reality, dualism is a fact.

Yet, science cannot accept such facts. For science, the near death experience must by definition be a hallucination produced by lack of oxygen to the brain. There is no other possibility. This is because we “know” that there is no such thing as a soul; there is only matter in motion. Even though physicists have already discovered that matter is a myth; that the universe is filled with other kinds of stuff, given such names as dark matter and dark energy; and that at the quantum level, particles do not act like material objects at all, but as waves and swarms, defying ordinary logic; and most importantly, that consciousness is fundamental to the nature of reality.

None of this has yet been digested by the modern mind. Politically, the capitalist system requires a belief in social Darwinism to justify its modes of action and methods of control. The communist system did likewise. Social systems that operate on other principles have been largely eliminated. That has included most indigenous tribal societies and most monastic societies. Modern thought, trapped in its material greed, is now psychotically destroying the planet in order to amass delusional wealth in the form of money. To call this collective psychosis is not exaggeration. This is even understood by many secular rationalists, yet they cannot change course.