Science was feeling let down! So much progress and yet no application… Gently placing His hand on Science’s shoulder the Father asked:
God: What is troubling you my dear?
Science: (Pointing at a man) This man is a scientist! He teaches young children the value of scientific thought. And here he is consulting an Astrologer? I am baffled my Lord! How can you know something and still behave as if you didn’t know it?
God: Relax my child! I am sure he well appreciates all that you have revealed.
Science: Then why get into astrology? I mean, if he really understood Science, he should know that the future is in-determined. You cannot predict the future with any certainty because you make the future. Why then do these people still take refuge in Tarots, Palmistry, Horoscope… It is frustrating Father!
God: What makes you think they are trying to find their future?
Science: Well isn’t that why you do any of that? Only when you have doubts on your current situation and need clarity on how to move into the future, you actually consult an astrologer. And these soothsayers take advantage of the fickle minds that come to them and predict everything under the sun to extract moneys from them.
God: That is being too harsh my child! Not everybody is like that. Even if a few are using astrology without authority, it does not make the whole system unscientific!
Science: (Surprised) How can you say that Father! You have revealed to me that the universe is a participatory universe and so there is no fixed future. Today you say those astrologers can really predict the future! How is that possible!
God: You are misunderstanding me, my child! I never said anything about the future! I said astrology is also a Science. It is a science to discover the past. The essence of astrology is to reveal an individual’s vasanas or behavioural patterns from his past. It merely indicates that given a particular situation, you have always behaved in a certain fashion in your past. Therefore you are probably going to repeat the same choices. It remains very much in the individual’s hands how he wishes to act upon a similar situation in the present or future! Astrology has nothing directly to do with the future.
Science: Sorry Father! I really don’t understand this at all.
God: Let me give you an example you will follow. You have uncovered a great deal about genes. Can you tell be the role of genes in a human being?
Science: Well, all living creatures are made of cells. Inside the cells are the chromosomes (packages) that contain a single long strand of DNA (genetic information) that is divided up into genes (sections of DNA). The genes that an individual has inherited from his ancestors, contain the instructions the cells need for every function. The information stored in the genes helps to determine traits like eye and hair colour, height and so on. It used to be believed that this hereditary information determined man’s general health, wellness and longevity. But it is now thought that in fact genetics only plays a small role in these things, maybe 30% or less!
God: Oh! Why has the importance on the genetic influence reduced in your understanding?
Science: We discovered that surrounding every gene is a protein sleeve. As long as this sleeve surrounds the DNA the information on the strand of DNA is not communicated to the cell. Dawson Church writes in his book Genie in Your Genes “Around each strand of DNA is a protein ‘sleeve.’ This sleeve serves as a barrier contained in the DNA strand and the rest of the intracellular environment. In order for the blueprint in the DNA to be ‘read,’ the sleeve must be unwrapped. Unless it is unwrapped, the DNA strand cannot be ‘read,’ or the information it contains acted upon. Until the information is unwrapped, the blueprint in the DNA lies dormant. That blueprint is required by the cell to construct other proteins that regulate virtually every aspect of life.”
God: Ah! So you now know that genes are like a set of blueprints. Perhaps the blueprints for a new home have been delivered to the builder. However it is right now rolled up inside a cardboard tube, sitting on his desk. Because the blueprints are concealed inside the tube, the builder does not yet have access to the instructions he needs to start building the home. It is only after he removes the blueprints from the tube that he can see the instructions to begin work.
Science: Exactly! So even though human evolution in its entirety may be stored in a gene, until the information in the DNA is exposed to the cell environment, that gene is dormant. Perhaps an individual’s genes contain instructions for weight gain, developing cancer, diabetes, receding hairline or the potential for athletic expression or musical expertise. But unless these instructions are exposed and given to the cell, the instructions are never acted upon! This is what we call as gene expression. Only when the information is uncovered and made available to the cell, it becomes expressed.
God: Hmmm… Somewhere in every human’s ancestry there must have been people with both disease and genius. The whole history of that family including several genetic weaknesses and strengths could be locked in his genes! Now, he gets to unlock it!
Science: Father, we have realised that though the DNA is housed inside the nucleus of every cell, the cell nucleus is not the ‘brain’ of the cell. The nucleus is simply the memory location that stores all of the instructions. It is the cell wall that is the actual brain! It is the cell wall that helps unlock the protein sleeve to help the gene manifest. This has helped man to understand that he is not a helpless victim with a predetermined fate decided by the genes he has inherited from his ancestors that are housed inside his cell nucleus. While his genes definitely determine his characteristics, he has a great deal of control over the final determination in most cases because he gets to choose what he unlocks!
God: But does he know how to unlock that protein sleeve? Has man understood how that genetic information that is stored gets manifest in his life?
Science: The cell wall is covered with gazillions of receptor protein molecules each having little antennas sensing and waiting to receive signals from the cell environment. These signals are picked up by the receptor proteins and transferred through the cell wall, into the nucleus unlocking and removing a corresponding protein sleeve. This unlocking exposes certain information. Now the expressed information is then acted upon. So it is the signal that triggers the exposing of and implementation of the genetic information. Without the signal the information is only a potential.
God: And what are these signals?
Science: Signals could be chemical like hormones or enzymes or they could be energy like emotions and thoughts!
God: Good! Now you understand! For years man has been taught that positive thoughts are good for health and well being while negative thoughts are detrimental to him. Now you my dear Science have actually discovered a process connecting the two. Kudos to your children!
Science: The interactions of an individual to the outside world affects the cell’s perceptions. This triggers their interaction within their environment and causes a second by second reprogramming of the individual’s genetics. Now this reprogramming can result in beneficial changes or detrimental ones entirely depending upon the thoughts and emotions attached by the individual at every second of experiencing life! Lord! I have scientific proof how an individual’s thoughts and emotions can change him physically! As Norman Cousens has titled his book “Your beliefs become your biology”.
God: O my dear! I am so proud that you have given proof to man that the 70 billion cells that create his body are literally listening to every thought he thinks, and are responding accordingly. This should help him appreciate why two identical twins at birth can end up not only looking completely different in old age but have widely varying degrees of health and wellness throughout their lifetime. It is a manifestation of their individual choices unlocking a common genetic potential! Now, with this background, look at astrology…
Science: (After a thoughtful pause) Oh! I get it, Father! Like the gene containing the blueprint, these methods actually just refer to the unconscious patterns in a person’s past thought processes. Future predictions, astrology, palmistry, tarot, horoscope reading – none of them have anything to do with the future. They reveal the un-manifest potential locked inside based on past choices. Like the cell wall that actually interacts to unlock the DNA, every individual encountering any situation can choose to mindlessly repeat his actions based on past choices or having now understood his potential choose to evolve into making a decision with greater consciousness.
God: Yes my dear! Just as how the thoughts you think, the things you say and the actions you take all immediately affect your genetic makeup to some degree, the emotions you experience at the moment of your decision making can alter your entire life. As my beloved child Osho said “Because people live like mechanical things the prediction about future is possible. If you know the past of the person, unless the person is a buddha, you will be able to predict his future because he is going to repeat it. If he has been an angry person in the past, he is carrying the tendency to be angry; that tendency will have effects in the future. You cannot read the horoscope of a Buddha because he is so free of the past and he is so empty in the present that there is nothing to read!”. My divine child Aurobindo revealed this truth in his eternal poem Savitri. Understanding and acting on this information, that man is driven by his vasanas and yet is capable of reprogramming his genetic code may be one of the most important things man can do!
Written by Gita Krishna Raj | Published in infinithoughts in March 2011
When Science met God… | Segment Three: The making of me… | Chapter Two: What are you unlocking?
