In the spiritual plane, the primary aphorism with which we operate is “aham brahmasmi”. From here, all spiritual knowledge starts. However, on the material plane, the fundamental aphorism is “aham matter” (sorry folks, I don’t know the sanskrit for matter) which is diametrically opposite with the postulates of people seeking God (true seekers and not pseudo-religionists which by the way constitute 99% of world religion today…anyway that is a different post).
One more problem as I see, is material scientists equate religion only to the Judeo-Christian tradition and anything beyond this is either mythology or esoteric (out-of-the box) and hence not taken seriously. Since the Judeo-Christian religions have a very brief history in the grand scheme of things and do not adequately explain anything (seriously) except for moral principles for human beings, lacks the sophistication that modern science possess. Therefore modern scientists think their religion (modern science) excels and outclasses every other religion (God related). Due to this ignorance from the religionists and the scientists, today we have crazy theories and ideas.
Anyways, to the point, for spiritualists, the definition of life is pretty straight forward, that spirit is different from matter and that spirit is part and parcel of God and matter is His inferior energy. Different spiritual pathways may not exactly say it like I wrote it but something to that effect. Overall, they accept the concept of matter, spirit and God are independent but inter-related.
Now, for the “aham matter” people (scientists and pseudo-religionists) the definition of life becomes baffling. It is funny because, scientists are releasing theories after theories trying to explain life and in spite of it being obvious, still they are not willing to accept that life is actually something different from matter. But since they do not want to accept this obvious and “on the face” difference, they are “struggling” to somehow connect life to matter and chemical combinations.
So I did a google and found out that (to my surprise), (a) there are so many theories and combination of theories; (b) different people from different subjects like biology or physics or chemistry define life from the view point of their respective fields; and (c) there is no one common definition or consensus as of this very moment as to what exactly is life? If you are interested, you can read this newpaper online article on life on msnbc - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20249616/
The only thing all scientists from natural biologists to physicists to chemists agree is life fundamentally boils down to nucleic acids (chemicals).
In one place, a person writes life is essentially made of fundamental units such as nuclei, electrons and the beautiful molecules they form.
Richard Dawkins in one his books argue that life is essentially bunch of DNA and the purpose of life is to propagate this DNA.
Cell theory which we all studied in high school states that cells, carbohydrates, lipids, DNA, nucleic acids, and proteins are building blocks of life.
Erwin Schrodinger (a famous physicist and Nobel Laureate) wrote a book called “what is life” and he explains the Theory of Negative entropy or negentropy which basically is the opposite of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. In plain terms, life should conform to the physics of the physical world. The assumption of course is living organisms are fundamentally composed of nothing more than the same molecules also found in non-living matter.
There was another theory (called Living systems) by another scientist using the same assumptions but just a different explanation and interpretation.
Overall, the whole educational system with all its departments (from kindergarten to 12th grade to Phd) teach students this “fact” of life that we are fundamentally nucleic acids and life is explained accordingly. Departments from sociology to life sciences to the physical and biological sciences operate under this theory.
Therefore, in the world today, in the name of science and religion we are taught to live absolute atheistic lifestyles and hence as a result indulge in mass slaughter of animals, deforestation, racial apartheids, genocides, child abuse, homicides, terrorism, human trafficking, prostitution, drug lords, war lords, poverty, rape, abortion etc etc etc…why… simply because all the scientists, elitists, politicians and pseudo-religionists are taught, teaching and strengthening this one fundamental point that essentially we are made of nucleic acids and therefore on the basis of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” concept, we have the rights to exploit, beat and kill each other to survive because our only goal in this life is to somehow just outclass our fellow living being (sorry…bunch of nucleic acids) so we can “live” peacefully. The problem still gets worse or in other words the urgency not felt because people from religion, philanthropy and humanitarians also operate under this “fatal theory” that life is a bunch of chemicals.
As Richard Dawkins says in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene which argues that "life is simply a means of propagating DNA, with every creature ruthlessly determined to continue its own line"
Most of the materialists (scientists and religionists) some where along that line agree to the above point. For example, we can break a car or burn paper and or abort babies all in the same vein simply because we are encouraged and taught to believe that life is just made of chemicals that fundamentally constitute living organisms and non-living matter and hence not a big deal anyways!
Indeed, as Srila Prabhupada said that this Krishna Consciousness movement will save mankind from its darkest hour.
It is more than ever that we are at a point in our times where the knowledge of soul, matter and supersoul has to be propagated far and wide.
Hare Krishna
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