By: BK Surya
Source: The Daily Guardian https://epaper.thedailyguardian.com/2025/11/07/delhi-08-november-2025/
Dated: November 8th, 2025

It has been said that to see beauty, the soul must become beautiful, and to understand the divine, it must become divine. This is a universal principle valid in both, science and spirituality. To perceive the subtle, the instrument of perception must itself become subtle. In science, this means refining external tools and methods; in spirituality, it means refining the inner instrument — the mind — through purity, focus, and meditation.

Just as science eventually revealed that the material universe is a play of energy and information, the spiritual quest reveals that the self, too, is a play of consciousness. In both, the journey depends not on adding more information, but on purifying the lens through which we see.

Scientific research has progressed from coarse to subtle levels of matter through the refinement of instruments and the evolution of human thought. Early scientific inquiry began with direct observation of the world. Philosophers and naturalists tried to understand matter by observing its visible properties: form, motion, growth, and decay. Developments in chemistry and improved instruments such as balances, thermometers, and early microscopes allowed scientists to infer, through logical reasoning, that matter was composed of smaller units, which were called molecules. Later, newer instruments and refined theories led to the idea that the atom was the fundamental unit of matter.

The atom was once thought indivisible, but in the last century physics discovered subatomic particles - electrons, protons, neutrons, and ultimately quantum fields. At this level, the objects of study became so subtle that it was impossible to understand them through old methods. New concepts had to be developed to study them. Matter, once believed to be solid and tangible, was found to be shaped by probability, energy, and information.

As matter was revealed in ever subtler forms, the human mind had to grow more subtle to perceive and comprehend it. Each advance in scientific understanding reflected a corresponding leap in mental refinement — from sensory observation to logical reasoning, to mathematical abstraction, to intuitive insight.

As the mind becomes more refined, disciplined, and subtle, it can perceive and comprehend ever more delicate and profound aspects of reality — both in the outer universe and within human nature.

Spiritual insight deepens as the instrument of perception — the mind — becomes refined through meditation and purity of awareness. If the mind is clouded by restlessness, desire, fear, or distraction, it distorts our perception, just as a dusty lens blurs the image. When it is calm, pure, and focused, the mind begins to reveal subtler dimensions of truth that were always present but previously obscured. Meditation, therefore, is the refinement of the instrument of consciousness.

Spiritual development progresses through increasingly subtle levels of inner experience. At first, the mind is outwardly oriented — it perceives the sensory world, identifies with the body, and is dominated by thought and emotion. Through meditation, we begin to notice the subtle movements of thought and feeling that shape our behaviour. 

With deeper concentration, our thoughts slow down and we can perceive the quality of our awareness, from which thoughts arise. At its most refined state, the mind becomes so still and pure that the distinction between observer and observed dissolves. This is the spiritual equivalent of discovering that matter is not solid but energy, and that the observer influences what is observed. Mystics have described this as union with the Divine, and realization of the self. What we focus on shapes our consciousness, and repeated focus becomes habitual thought. Gradually, our self-image and behaviour start to reflect that focus, because the subconscious mind tends to become what it dwells upon. This is the way to experience a connection with the Divine and divinize the self.

BK Surya is a Rajyoga teacher 
at the Brahma Kumaris headquarters in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.