Technology: Science vs. Spirit

I recently attended a home-going ritual for a dear friend that was led by another good friend of mine who incorporated Native American ritual practices in the memorial.  He stated (I’m paraphrasing) that he was going to use “technology” to help us in our ritual to carry our prayers and thoughts to the unseen realm.

This sparked the question in me, is there a legitimate difference between spiritual technology and scientific technology?  Of course the first question to address is what is spiritual technology?

Spiritual technology implies that we are solving a problem through intellectual or man-made means.  Here is the definition on Wikipedia:

"Technology (from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia^[1]) is the making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a pre-existing solution to a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function."

If we consider what we are trying to achieve when we pray, chant mantras, do various meditations, perform yogic asanas, we must conceive that we are using these “tools, machines, techniques, crafts and systems” to solve a problem.  What is that problem? Fundamentally, it is our separation from Source and how to get back there.  Logistically, it may refer to particular situations and events that are challenging us at the moment.

Whereas spiritual technology would mainly be focused on the internal world of spirit, the scientific approach to technology is mainly focused on the external world of matter. As science delves deeper into the smaller realms of nano technology and is now creating machines on the molecular level, and with the CERN experiments to create anti-matter at the atomic level, we are moving closer and closer to spirit and science converging.

This convergence is most notably seen with the well-known double slit experiment thanks to movies like “What the Bleep Do We Know.” This atomic experiment demonstrates how our perception of an event actually affects the outcome of the event.   By visualizing experiences through meditation and focusing on an ideal form through the worship of deities and signifiers that point to an altruistic version of who we all want to become, we can actually change the atomic properties of ourselves and the world around us.  Quantum physics proves this and spirituality has demonstrated it many times through the works of spiritual masters like, Yogananda, Buddha, Jesus and Sai Baba. 

Even disciples of these great beings have used spiritual technology to achieve miraculous events.   In fact we use this technology everyday consciously or unconsciously through our repeated thought patterns and internal script that continues to play in our head like a record on repeat.  By repeating mantras like, “I’m tired,” or “I don’t have enough money” we continuously create those experiences in our world.  To create alternative experiences we have to harness our spiritual technology and create new mantras of “I am strengthening my body to have more energy,” or “I have numerous opportunities around me that will help me bring in more financial abundance.”

Our understanding of the term “technology” has hitherto been limited to a scientific application but because of our increase in scientific knowledge we are actually uncovering the similarities between spirituality and science and we may one day see them unified.