Preparing for the Miraculous

210 eleven talksthe beginning of new things which are still the same Onein an ever developing and ever recurring figure. Nothingcan be destroyed for all is He who is for ever. The EternalInfinite and One is the unimaginable end that is the neverclosing gate upon new interminable vistas of his glory.” 31The central problem of science, as practiced since “thescientific revolution” in the 17th century, is that it recognizesonly matter as the substance of reality and the object ofits study. The wisdom of ages in East and West has held thatthe layers of reality are those of matter, the life forces, mind,and the spirit, in the traditions called the “Chain of Being.”Since Lorentz and Einstein materialistic science has to acceptfrom its formulas that matter equals energy, and thateach term can be transformed into the other. 32 Two of thebasic tools of the scientific method are measure ment andmathematics, the third one being systematic experimentation.However, measurement and mathematics are onlyapplicable to material objects, and materialistic science hasitself already shot far past the boundaries of matter into anoccultism where the intellect feels lost. Of this the paradoxesof quantum mechanics are a telling example.“Neither the laws or the possibilities of physical Naturecan be entirely known unless we know also the lawsand possibilities of supraphysical Nature,” wrote Sri Aurobindoin The Human Cycle. 33 And elsewhere: “Havingexamined and explained Matter by physical methods andin the language of the material Brahman, – it is not reallyexplained, but let that pass, – having failed to carry thatway of knowledge into other fields beyond a narrow limit,31 Sri Aurobindo: Essays Divine and Human, p. 220.32 The complete formula will prove to be, as taught by the great traditions:matter = energy = consciousness.33 Sri Aurobindo: The Human Cycle, p. 78.