A religious mind is free of the past, a religious mind is free of time, because time belongs to the positive and negative reactions. So, a religious mind is a mind that is capable of thinking precisely, not in terms of negative and positive; therefore such a religious mind has the scientific mind within it, but the scientific mind has not the religious mind within it. The religious mind contains the scientific mind, but the scientific mind cannot contain the religious mind because that is based on time, on knowledge, on achievement, success, utilization.
The religious mind is a mind that is capable of thinking precisely, clearly, sharply, which is the scientific mind. And it is the religious mind that is creative, not the scientific mind. The scientific mind can invent. Invention, capacity, gift, has nothing to do with creative being; writing a poem, painting pictures, composing music, is not the creative thing of the religious mind. So, the religious mind is the only mind that can respond totally to the present challenge and to all challenges at all times.
The really scientific mind and the really religious mind are the only two minds that can exist in the twentieth century, not the superstitious, believing, temple-going, church-worshiping mind. The scientific mind is the mind that pursues fact. To pursue materialistic fact, which is to discover under the microscope, needs immense accumulated knowledge. And such a scientific mind is the product of the twentieth century. So, one begins to see that a scientific mind, the so-called educated mind, the mind that has learnt a certain technique and thinks rationally and with knowledge, always moves from the known to the known, from fact to fact. Such a mind is absolutely necessary because it can reason logically, sanely, rationally, precisely. But such a mind cannot, obviously, free itself to inquire into what is beyond the accumulated knowledge – which is the function of religion.
A religious mind is free of all authority. It is extremely difficult to be free from authority – not only the authority imposed by another but also the authority of the experience which one has gathered, which is of the past, which is tradition. The religious mind has no beliefs, it has no dogmas; it moves from fact to fact. Therefore the religious mind is the scientific mind. But the scientific mind is not the religious mind. The religious mind includes the scientific mind, but the mind that is trained in the knowledge of science is not a religious mind.
I want to talk about something which concerns the whole world, about which the whole world is disturbed: it is the question of the religious spirit and the scientific mind. There are these two attitudes in the world. These are the only two attitudes in the world: the true religious spirit and the scientific mind. Every other activity is destructive, leading to a great deal of misery, confusion and sorrow.
The scientific mind is very factual. Discovery is its mission, its perception. It sees things through a microscope, through a telescope; everything is to be seen actually as it is. From that perception science draws conclusions, builds up theories. Such a mind moves from fact to fact. The spirit of science has nothing to do with individual conditions, with nationalism, with race, with prejudice. Scientists are there to explore matter, to investigate the structure of the earth and of the stars and the planets, to find out how to cure man’s diseases, how to prolong man’s life, to explain time, both the past and the future. But the scientific mind and its discoveries are used and exploited by the nationalistic mind, by the mind that is India, by the mind that is Russia, by the mind that is America. Scientific discovery is utilized and exploited by sovereign states and continents.
Then there is the religious mind, the true religious mind, that does not belong to any cult, to any group, to any religion, to any organized church. The religious mind is not the Hindu mind, the Christian mind, the Buddhist mind, or the Muslim mind; the religious mind does not belong to any group which calls itself religious. The religious mind is not the mind that goes to churches, temples, mosques. Nor is it a religious mind that holds to certain forms of beliefs, dogmas. The religious mind is completely alone. It is a mind that has seen through the falsity of churches, dogmas, beliefs, traditions. Not being nationalistic, not being conditioned by its environment, such a mind has no horizons, no limits; it is explosive, new, young, fresh, innocent. The innocent mind, the young mind, the mind that is extraordinarily pliable, subtle, has no anchor. It is only such a mind that can experience that which you call God, that which is not measurable. A human being is a true human being when the scientific spirit and the true religious spirit go together. He is the true Brahmin, the new human being, who combines both the scientific and the religious mind, and therefore is harmonious without any contradiction within himself. The purpose of education is to create this new mind which is explosive and does not conform to a pattern which society has set.