There is not really any necessary conflict between religion, science and art.
There is not really any necessary conflict between religion, science and art.
We have created the conflict, that's true, but there need not be, and in a real person there is none.
Religion is the goal, science is the technique, art is the way.
In a really integrated person that's how it happens: he uses all the science that is possible to move on the way. Science makes it quicker to move; it helps tremendously. If science itself does not become the end it is of great value.
When the means start pretending to be the end, then the trouble arises.
Science is not the goal: science cannot give any value to human life but it can enhance values. It can destroy poverty, it can destroy illness. Just by destroying illness nothing is achieved, but when you remove the weeds from the garden there is a possibility for the roses to grow better.
Just by removing the weeds, roses will not grow -- that's true: you will have to bring the roses too.
Religion is the ultimate goal. Science can make the earth so beautiful, so happy, that prayer will become easier. When a person is starving it is difficult for him to pray. In fact to expect prayer from a starving person is cruel; it is hard. When the person is well-fed, well-sheltered, lives in convenience and comfort, it is easier for prayer to arise.
Prayer is like a rose, it is the ultimate luxury, but the basic necessities religion cannot provide. That's why religious countries have remained poor, the east has remained poor.
Religion cannot provide the basic necessities, it has nothing to do with them; to ask that from religion is nonsense.
If you want to make a house you have to ask the architect, not the mystic. If you want to grow more food you have to ask the agriculturist, not the mystic. And if you want to create factories to produce more things, to help people live better, if you want a better standard of life you have to ask the scientist.
When all have done their work -- the architect has made the house and the road, the scientist has made the factory and the technology, the agriculturist has done farming -- when all have done their work, then comes the mystic; only then can he come! He is the last! Only then does prayer and god become meaningful and significant.
You don't play a guitar before a starving and dying man. He will kill you, he will destroy your guitar; he is not ready to listen to music. You are offending him by playing music.
So there is not necessarily any conflict, not for me at least. My whole approach is that science is the servant and religion is the master; religion should remain the ultimate value. It is not against science: science paves the way for it. And art should be the middle-man between the master and the servant... the manager.
_Abridged From:_
*Far Beyond the Stars*
(A Darshan Diary)
_Talks given from 1/7/77 to 31/7/77_
*OSHO*
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