Science & Sensibility

Knowledge is Power

It is my hope that upon reading this article, our intellectual brethren will take note of the wonderful message in Gurbani and counterbalance the misplaced view that only science represents the truth and has all the answers and the two, religion and science, should be kept at arms length. As a very learned man once said;

“Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind.”(Albert Einstein, Science, Philosophy and Religion: A symposium 1941 Chapter 13).

My colleagues and I are under the opinion that Sikhism and science are not incompatible but complementary. In many ways science today is simply corroborating what the Sikh Gurus had said and recorded centuries ago.

On 7th January 1610, an Italian physicist Galileo Galilee (1564-1642) theorised that “There are millions of stars which get together to form the Milky Way”. According to the latest estimate of the scientists there are more than 40 thousand million stars in the Milky Way alone.
Guru Nanak (1469-1539) wrote, “There are earths, beyond earths, beyond earths (SGGS p. 3)” and “There are skies above skies and earths below earths. Human mind gets tired of search. All knowledge simply points to the one fact that there is no end of vastness.” (ANG 5) “There is no end to the creation of the Lord” (SGGS p. 3). About the sun and the moon he said, “There are numerous suns, moons and other galaxies.”(ANG 7).

Scientists, state, that Hydrogen and oxygen gases in the air combined to form water (H2O) and life emerged from water some 350 million years ago. According to Alister Hardy’s ‘aquatic ape theory’ (1960) living creatures began to emerge from water when the ozone layer on the earth became thick enough to protect the living creatures from the lethal rays of space.
Our Guru says, “From the True Lord came the air, and from the air came water. From water, He created the three worlds (of life in water, on earth and in air); in each and every heart He has infused His Light.”

The sun is slowly but surely burning out, the stars are dying ambers, and everywhere in the universe the cosmic heat is turning into cold, matter is dissolving into radiation, and energy is being dissipated into empty space. The universe is thus progressing to an ultimate heat death and there is no way of avoiding this destiny.” (The universe and Dr. Einstein p. 102).
The Guru Granth Sahib Ji states, “Beauty disintegrates, islands disintegrate, and the sun, the moon, the stars and sky are fading away. The earth, mountains, forests and all lands will fade away.” (ANG 1354).

In 1977 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s divers went underwater in Pacific Ocean’s Galapagos rift where they discovered living plants in the underwater volcanic cracks. The rift water has a temperature of 3990C. Ordinarily life does not survive in such high temperatures. Since then, 295 other new species of life (called pyrococcus furiosus) have been discovered in the hot waters of the Galapagos rift alone.
Guru Granth Sahib Ji says, “Such is our Lord that He provides sustenance even to those that exist in fire.” (ANG 488).

A scientist named Hooke proved in 1660 that “air is essential for respiration and that there is no substitute for it” (Taylor’s History of Science p.95).
Our Guru’s stated years earlier “Born of water, life is sustained by air.”(ANG 884).

It should be understood that the Sikh Gurus were not scientists nor trained in scientific methods. Yet they provided tremendous insights into the workings of the natural and physical world.

The Guru Granth Sahib Ji tells us about so many things, many of which we were unable to mention, we just need to take the time to understand the messages it beholds. If the scientists quoted above had studied the Guru Granth Sahib Ji, society would have saved hundreds of years in obtaining answers that had already been given to us by our Guru Ji.