It is not science that brought about the realization that:
"behind this force [is] the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
If that were true, the idea of a conscious universe would be a universally accepted fact in the world of science and the current controversy would be non-existent. But it is not. Only a handful of scientists have come to this realization, but it is an intuitive insight, not one based on factual knowledge because there is no factual evidence to support it. Having said that, some scientists must travel down the scientific path until at some point they come to this kind of realization. However, the mystic cuts right to the heart of the matter (no pun) transcending the thinking mind altogether, and it is the thinking mind that is the basis for science. That is why mystics nailed this question centuries ago without science. They've got to the heart of the matter while science is still busy nibbling around the edges bit by bit.
You are talking about factual knowledge. I am talking about the nature of things. Factual knowledge does not yield the knowledge that tells us what things actually are. It knows about characteristics and their behavior and how to predict behavior. It is not a provable fact that the universe is conscious, but Planck sees this as the nature of things via his intuitive insight. IOW, he's just putting 2 and 2 together. Silence allows one to shut down the chatter of the thinking discursive mind to allow the seeing directly into the nature of Reality. Mind, with its incessant chatter and jumping about (ie 'monkey mind') cannot do that, simply because it is always trying to construct an idea or concept ABOUT Reality Mind is always trying to pigeonhole Reality. 'What is this?' 'How does this work?' etc. Very noisy. Consciousness in Silence just sees things as they are.
You are saying that insight is dependent upon knowledge, but it is the other way around. One must see first.
Right, right the self is an illusion yadayada, that is all really beside the point. Someone may have been able to speculate that the self is an illusion, science simply explains how thats possible. In fact enlightenment occurs with more knowledge. Being all knowing would be, having awareness of everything in the cosmos, this super consciousness your talking about also would have this knowledge your so quick to trash.
A whirlpool is nothing more than whirling water. A 'whirler' of the whirling water does not exist.
Likewise, we are Being itself. An agent of Being called 'I' is both unnecessary and illusory.
No, Enlightenment occurs when consciousness is completely empty. Knowledge stands in the way of Enlightenment. Enlightenment simply means that you now see things as they actually are, rather than how knowledge tells you they are. Knowledge gives you all the facts but tells you nothing. Enlightenment pushes all the facts aside so that it can show you what the true nature of Everything actually is. IOW, the insight that Enlightenment provides cuts through superficial facts and data, and that is exactly why Planck was able to come to the conclusion that he did: he saw into the matter more deeply than science alone can see.
Once again, I am not trashing scientific knowledge, but it stands in the way of having a true insight into the nature of Reality and of The Universe. Science has things backwards. When one attains insight into the nature of things first, then scientific knowledge can then be seen within the correct context of Reality, but science instead wants to explain what the Universe is via factual knowledge, and that is simply impossible. It is a skeletal and dead view of The Universe, and the reason it cannot understand the conscious nature of Everything.
