INTRODUCTION
Science without religion is lame.
Religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
Metaphysical cosmology is not generally taken seriously within the framework of modern scientific thought. This is understandable. Metaphysics by nature is nonobjective, so it is ruled out by definition in conventional science where theories and ideas must remain just that until verified objectively.
However, as we come to understand our universe as a whole, we begin to realize that modern physics is metaphysics in a rediscovered and more perfected form. Classical science, the objectively-knowable perspective on reality and the entire universe it describes, can be recognized as an objective expression of a transcendental state of reality which, by virtue of its unchangeable unified condition, is even more real than the physical universe itself.
The value of a metaphysical system of teaching is often misunderstood within the framework of modern organized religions. This is unfortunate. When religious traditions become so dogmatically entangled that they lose any form of metaphysical understanding of the transcendental omnipresence, they become essentially stagnant and blind to what a spiritual universe is all about.
Students of comparative religion and those familiar with the ancient mystical philosophies do not have a problem with the abstract universal principles of metaphysics and how they relate to the parochialisms of theological traditions. Ideally, the ultimate goal of any spiritual tradition should be to bring the seeker to a state of spiritual awareness in which all such traditions are assimilated, and at the same time, not needed in their dogmatic form.
With our great pride in scientific knowledge, have we ignorantly filed the most beautiful principles of the ancient wisdom into the category of the absurd? In our extremes of secular materialism and religious zeal, have we forgotten the real substance of the ancient message? It would appear so, for the most part.
Still, many say we are at the dawn of a great awakening, something which has been in the making for quite some time. It is for you, of course, to explore and decide for yourself. Explore the traditions and directions that draw your interest. Trust your intuition. The most beautiful mystical realizations are both profoundly simple and strangely bizarre. It is said that the Ancient Wisdom takes only moments to teach, yet lifetimes to understand. This is our quest.
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started,
and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot
