The Science of Spirituality by Lee Bladon The Science of Spirituality integrates the individual systems of science, psychology, philosophy, spirituality and religion into a unified system that describes the multi-dimensional nature of man and the universe. It provides a more comprehensive description of reality than science can offer and explains the mechanisms behind an array of paranormal phenomena that science chooses to ignore. It explains the science behind religious, spiritual and new-age beliefs, and sheds light on some common misconceptions.

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Science, Psychology, Philosophy, Spirituality and Religion

With science and religion we have two seemingly opposed views of how life, the universe and everything began:

• Scientists generally believe that a perfectly balanced universe spontaneously appeared out of nothingness, and that life, consciousness and intelligence randomly evolved from inert matter.

• Christians generally believe that an all-powerful and all-knowing God created  the world and its myriad of life-forms (in just six days).

Not only do they both seem pretty unbelievable, they appear to share no common ground. However, recent scientific discoveries have unknowingly provided evidence that supports the multi-dimensional nature of reality that Hindus, Buddhists and Kabbalists have known about for thousands of years:

• The latest scientific models state that the universe is multi-dimensional, with six or more hidden spatial dimensions, and is primarily composed of non-physical matter (dark matter and dark energy).

• Respected doctors and medical practitioners are now openly investigating near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and past-life regression, and are beginning to discover the multi-dimensional nature of human beings.

By combining modern scientific facts with ancient spiritual knowledge we begin to uncover the whole truth and bring unity out of the existing duality. There can be only one true reality, but we will never discover the whole truth if we hold on to   our preconceived ideas and only look from one perspective. Einstein said: "Religion without science is blind, science without religion is lame", because they are two sides of the same coin.

Science and spirituality both agree that we live in a multi-dimensional universe,  and paranormal phenomena suggest that life exists in these other dimensions. Human beings may be at the top of the evolutionary ladder in our 3-dimensional physical world but a hierarchy of increasingly advanced beings live in dimensions  that exist just beyond our normal range of perception. These higher-dimensional beings are omniscient and omnipotent in our physical world, which is how our concept of god originated.

A handful of these highly advanced beings periodically incarnate to teach the most advanced members of humanity about the true nature of reality. The great masters such as Krishna, Buddha and Christ (and many others who kept lower profiles) are the originators of esoteric knowledge – the one true science and the one true religion. The information was shrouded in mystery and symbolism to prevent the uninitiated from fully understanding it in the event that it became public knowledge.

Most of the world’s major religions were built around carefully selected pieces of this esoteric information that were taught to the general public at various times throughout history. As time passed and the religions grew, bureaucracy, dogma  and superstition developed, which further distorted the original teachings. Science developed in response to the woefully poor explanations of reality offered by western religion. The early scientists were persecuted and deemed heretics for questioning the Church and delving into the mind of God, when all they sought to  do was to understand the world in which they lived. Scientific scepticism of all things mystical is still very much apparent today.

A significant amount of esoteric information was released into the public domain  at the end of the 19th century but it (theosophy) failed to make much of an impact because religion was dominant, science was in its infancy and the people of the time were too reserved. The popularity of metaphysics, spirituality and new science in the 21st century indicates that the world is now ready for a modern presentation of esoteric knowledge.

The Science of Spirituality systematically describes the mechanisms behind a diverse range of subject matter including: consciousness, sleep and dreams, reincarnation, religion, creation, evolution, space and time, seven planes, higher dimensions, heaven and hell, ghosts, angels and demons, out of body experiences, near death experiences, clairvoyance, psychic abilities, personal development, meditation, enlightenment and the meaning of life.

I hope the website and book spark your interest and inspire your own quest.

Lee Bladon

Science of Pyramids

The ancient pyramids are among the most astonishing structures in the world. Built in ancient times by workers who didn't have the benefit of modern tools and machinery, they are a constant source of fascination. Most of us think of ancient Egypt when pyramids come to mind, but they exist in many parts of the world. Why did the ancients build pyramids? What was their purpose? Is there any special meaning behind the pyramid shape? How were they built without earth-moving or heavy-lift machinery? In this article, we'll examine pyramids around the world, how they were constructed and who used them.
What is a pyramid?
A pyramid is a geometrical solid with a square base and four equilateral triangular sides, the most structurally stable shape for projects involving large amounts of stone or masonry. Pyramids of various types, sizes and complexities were built in many parts of the ancient world (like Central America, Greece, China and Egypt). In the history of Egypt and China, they were primarily tombs and monuments to kings and leaders. The pyramids of the Mayans and Aztecs of Central America were mainly religious temples, though some of them housed burial chambers.

Did you know? Laborers used 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which stands 146 meters high, has a 230-meter-square base and weighs about 6.5 million tons.

The Central American pyramids were smaller and sometimes wider than their Egyptian counterparts. These pyramids also took longer to finish -- they were often built and modified over hundreds of years, while Egyptian pyramids took a couple of decades to construct. Pyramids in Central America were integrated into Aztec and Mayan cities, whereas Egyptian pyramids were located away from the major cities.

The ancestors of these great structures are the burial tombs found throughout North America and Europe -- simple mounds of earth that covered burial chambers. The first tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs were flat, box-shaped buildings called mastabas (Arabic for "bench"). Pharaohs later built grander tombs by adding levels on top of the box to form stepped pyramids. Stepped pyramids are prevalent in Central America. In Mesopotamia, they were called ziggurats.

Science behind Lightning

Lightning is caused by the build up of electrostatic charge in clouds. One region within the cloud builds up a positive charge and the other a negative charge. The process is not completely understood as to why, but the bottom of the cloud usually ends up being negatively charged and the top positively charged. If the build up (separation) of charge becomes great enough, the negative charges may leap to the positive side of another cloud, this is called sheet lightning or it may leap to the ground.
* As the negative charges collect at the bottom of the cloud it forces the negative charges in the ground to be forced away from the surface. This leaves the ground positive.
* A streamer of negative charges is repelled by the bottom of the cloud and attracted by the ground.
* As this streamer of negative charges approaches the ground, a streamer of positive charges is repelled by the ground and attracted to the negative streamer.
* When the two streamers connect, they have created a fairly conductive path which allows a sudden down surge of electrons to jump to the ground. This is the lightning.
* The rapidly moving electrons excite the air along the path so much that it emits light. It also heats the air so intensely that it rapidly expands creating thunder.
* One thing to notice is that the positive charges that make up both the cloud and the ground do not move. Even the positive streamer launched by the ground is really only made up of positively charged air particles because the electron(s) left the particle.
Three basic types:
1. Cloud to ground Lightning
2. Ground to cloud Lightning
3. Cloud to cloud Lightning
Other classifications of Lightning:
1. Positive lightning or High voltage Lightning popularly known as “bolt from the blue” 2. Dry lightning: This type of lightning is the most common natural cause of wild land fires. Dry lightning may also be referred to as heat lightning. lightning near the horizon that is reflected by high clouds 3. Sheet lightning - Normal lightning that is reflected in the clouds
4. Ball lightning - A phenomenon where lightning forms a slow, moving ball that can burn objects in its path before exploding or burning out
5. Red sprite - A red burst reported to occur above storm clouds and reaching a few miles in length (toward the stratosphere) 6. Blue jet - A blue, cone-shaped burst that occurs above the center of a storm cloud and moves upward (toward the stratosphere) at a high rate of speed
7. Bead lightning
8. Ribbon lightning
9. Staccato lightning

science behind Angers

Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain

Everyone's favorite A-list target, Robert Scoble, announced the unthinkable a few days ago: he will be moderating his comments. But what some people found far more disturbing was Robert's wish to make a change in his life that includes steering clear of "people who were deeply unhappy" and hanging around people who are happy. The harsh reaction he's gotten could be a lesson in scientific ingorance, because the neuroscience is behind him on this one.

Whether it's a good move is up to each person to decide, but I've done my best here to offer some facts. [Disclaimer: I'm not an authority on the brain! I have, however, spent the last 15 years doing research and applying it, both in my work and also because I have a serious brain disorder, and my brain knowledge could be a matter of life and death. Another disclaimer: I haven't spoken with Robert about this; I'm simply offering some science that supports the decision he may have made for entirely different reasons.]

A few things I'll try to explain in this post:

1) One of the most important recent neuroscience discoveries--"mirror neurons", and the role they play in a decision like Robert's

2) The heavily-researched social science phenomenon known as "emotional contagion"

3) Ignorance and misperceptions around the idea of "happy people"

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Mirror Neurons

Mirror neurons have been referred to by scientists likeV.S. Rmachandran as one of the most important neuroscientific breakthroughs of recent history. This Nova video is a great introduction, but here's the condensed version:

There is now strong evidence to suggest that humans have the same type of "mirror neurons" found in monkeys. It's what these neurons do that's amazing--they activate in the same way when you're watchingwatching others. We learn from imitating (mirroring) others. The potential problem, though, is that these neurons go happily about their business of imitating others without our conscious intention. someone else do something as they do when you're doing it yourself! This mirroring process/capability is thought to be behind our ability to empathize, but you can imagine the role these neurons have played in keeping us alive as a species. We learn from

Think about that...

Although the neuroscientific findings are new, your sports coach and your parents didn't need to know the cause to recognize the effects:

"Choose your role models carefully."
"Watching Michael Jordan will help you get better."
"You're hanging out with the wrong crowd; they're a bad influence."
"Don't watch people doing it wrong... watch the experts!"

We've all experienced it. How often have you found yourself sliding into the accent of those around you? Spend a month in England and even a California valley girl sounds different. Spend a week in Texas and even a native New Yorker starts slowing down his speech. How often have you found yourself laughing, dressing, skiing like your closest friend? Has someone ever observed that you and a close friend or significant other had similar mannerisms? When I was in junior high school, it was tough for people to tell my best friends and I apart on the phone--we all sounded so much alike that we could fool even our parents.

But the effect of our innate ability and need to imitate goes way past teenage phone tricks. Spend time with a nervous, anxious person and physiological monitoring would most likely show you mimicking the anxiety and nervousness, in ways that affect your brain and body in a concrete, measurable way. Find yourself in a room full of pissed off people and feel the smile slide right off your face. Listen to people complaining endlessly about work, and you'll find yourself starting to do the same. How many of us have been horrified to suddenly realize that we've spent the last half-hour caught up in a gossip session--despite our strong aversion to gossip? The behavior of others we're around is nearly irresistible.

When we're consciously aware and diligent, we can fight this. But the stress of maintaining that conscious struggle against an unconscious, ancient process is a non-stop stressful drain on our mental, emotional, and physical bandwidth. And no, I'm not suggesting that we can't or should'nt spend time with people who are angry, negative, critical, depressed, gossiping, whatever. Some (including my sister and father) chose professions (nurse practitioner and cop, respectively) that demand it. And some (like my daughter) volunteer to help those who are suffering (in her case, the homeless). Some people don't want to avoid their more hostile family members. But in those situations--where we choose to be with people who we do not want to mirror--we have to be extremely careful! Nurses, cops, mental health workers, EMTs, social workers, red cross volunteers, fire fighters, psychiatrists, oncologists, etc. are often at a higher risk (in some cases, WAY higher) for burnout, alcholism, divorce, stress, or depression unless they take specific steps to avoid getting too sucked in to be effective.

So, when Robert says he wants to spend time hanging around "happy people" and keeping his distance from "deeply unhappy" people, he's keeping his brain from making--over the long term--negative structural and chemical changes. Regarding the effect of mirror neurons and emotional contagion on personal performance, neurologist Richard Restak offers this advice:

"If you want to accomplish something that demands determination and endurance, try to surround yourself with people possessing these qualities. And try to limit the time you spend with people given to pessimism and expressions of futility. Unfortunately, negative emotions exert a more powerful effect in social situations than positive ones, thanks to the phenomena of emotional contagion."

This sounds harsh, and it is, but it's his recommendation based on the facts as the neuroscientists interpret them today. This is not new age self-help--it's simply the way brains work.

Emotional Contagion

Steven Stosny, an expert on road rage, is quoted in Restak's book:

"Anger and resentment are thet most contagious of emotions," according to Stonsy. "If you are near a resentful or angry person, you are more prone to become resentful or angry yourself. If one driver engages in angry gestures and takes on the facial expressions of hostility, surrounding drivers will unconsciously imitate the behavior--resulting in an escalation of anger and resentment in all of the drivers. Added to this, the drivers are now more easily startled as a result of the outpouring of adrenaline accompanying their anger. The result is a temper tantrum that can easily escalate into road rage."

If you were around one or more people with a potentially harmful contagious disease, you would probably take steps to protect yourself in some way. And if you were the contagious one, you'd likely take steps to protect others until you were sure the chance of infecting someone else was gone.

But while we all have a lot of respect for physical biological contagions, we do NOT have much respect for physical emotional contagions. (I said "physical", because science has known for quite some time that "emotions" are not simply a fuzzy-feeling concept, but represent physical changes in the brain.)

From a paper on Memetics and Social Contagion ,

"...social scientific research has largely confirmed the thesis that affect, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour can indeed spread through populations as if they were somehow infectious. Simple exposure sometimes appears to be a sufficient condition for social transmission to occur. This is the social contagion thesis; that sociocultural phenomena can spread through, and leap between, populations more like outbreaks of measels or chicken pox than through a process of rational choice."

Emotional contagion is considered one of the primary drivers of group/mob behavior, and the recent work on "mirror neurons" helps explain the underlying cause. But it's not just about groups. From a Cambridge University Press book:

"When we are talking to someone who is depressed it may make us feel depressed, whereas if we talk to someone who is feeling self-confident and buoyant we are likely to feel good about ourselves. This phenomenon, known as emotional contagion, is identified here, and compelling evidence for its affect is offered from a variety of disciplines - social and developmental psychology, history, cross-cultural psychology, experimental psychology, and psychopathology."

[For a business management perspective, see the Yale School of Management paper titled The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion In Groups]

Can any of us honestly say we haven't experienced emotional contagion? Even if we ourselves haven't felt our energy drain from being around a perpetually negative person, we've watched it happen to someone we care about. We've noticed a change in ourselves or our loved ones based on who we/they spend time with. We've all known at least one person who really did seem able to "light up the room with their smile," or another who could "kill the mood" without saying a word. We've all found ourselves drawn to some people and not others, based on how we felt around them, in ways we weren't able to articulate.

So, Robert's choice makes sense if he is concerned about the damaging effects of emotional contagion. But... that still leaves one big issue: is "catching" only positive emotions a Good Thing? Does this mean surrounding ourselves with "fake" goodness and avoiding the truth? Does surrounding ourselves with "happy people" mean we shut down critical thinking skills?

science behind superstitions

WHY DID OUR ANCESTORS CREATE A GOD CALLED - ARDHANARISHVARA !
HALF WOMAN AND HALF MALE GOD

The term – ARDHANARISHVARA is a combination of three words –ARDHA , NARI , ISVARA which means HALF, WOMAN, GOD respectively.
Ardhanarishvara is the god whose half is woman ,indicating that It is male (SHIVA) and female (SAKTHI) who are inseparable;there is no existance in absense one or the other.

What is discovered in medical science today, has already an origin in eastern philosophies like Buddhism, YOGA , Mayan civilization who were aware of the power of maintaining balance between these two opposite energies.

The Buddha taught that each human being has a right and left hemisphere in the brain, which we classify as male and female, the right being female, left being male. The left or male side is in charge of the right side of the body and the right brain or female side is in charge of the left side of the body.
The Mayan placed themselves and their environment into categories using the basic complementary pairing of male/female, and right/left.

In yoga male energy (the sun), is referred to as Shiva, and is the form of the universe. Male energy is the domain of the right side of the body. Whereas female energy (the moon), is referred to as Shakti, and is the force of the universe. The female energy is the domain of the left side of the body.
The significant importance is that as one person we need to be in constant balance to be able to achieve the best of our world, mental physical and emotional. Both sides, male and female have to attain a harmonious whole.

science behind rituals

thapaparam kruthayuge threthaayaam jnaanamuchyathe

dwapare yajnamevahurdhaanameka kalau yuge

sasy manusmruthi. In kruthayuga only penayanace. In threthayugam knowledge. Dwaparayuga sacrifis. And in kaliyuga benevolence. This would have been defined for the historical and geographical reasons, taking the societal, environmental situation into account.

Bharatheeya Dharma, branchedout into Buddha, Jain, or as told in the Kural will talk about being Philanthropy.

Manushyayajna is important. The Panjamahayathna is what is prescribed.

Every morning a handful of rice (uncooked) must be seta apart for the poor. All families must do this without fail everyday. The rice thus kept must be collected from house to house, from quarter to quarter, cooked, offered to the deity of the local temple as nivedya and then distributed among the poor. With the handful of rice set apart some money also. This would be sufficient to support for the side dishes and the preparation cost. This will be a great service to the poor and to the god also. Charity like this should be to encourage people to go to temple, not to speak about devotion. Since the food is first offered as the naivedya, it would mean that the devotees will take it as prasada (radiance or happiness) which will impart the inner purity.

ANNADANAM and VIDYAADHAANAM

Annadana or the gift of food is one kind o service or paropakara. We talk of service to the poor, social service and so on. Today all this is done with much fanfare and publicity. In the past the needy were served naturally, without making any noise.

With education we purify our intelligence, with meditation we purify our mind, with sloka or poetry we purify our speech, by exerting ourselves in the service of others one must purify the physic or body.

Many slokas indicate the importance of the annadanam.

gajathuragasahasram gokulam kotidhaanam

kanakarajitha paathram medhinee saagarantham

ubhayakula visudham kotikanyaapradhaanam

nahi nahi bahudhaanam annadhaanassamaanam

says annadhaanam is greater than donating many horses, elephants, gold ornaments, vessals, land, kanyadhanam etc.

The importance of feeding a knowledgeable person indicates the importance given to education and learning and teaching.

sudrakoti sahasraanaam, ekam viprathu bhojayel

viprakoti sahasraanaam, ekam Vishnu prathishtitham

vishnu koti sahasraanaam ekaarudra prathishtitham

rudrakoti sahasraanaam ekojnaanihi bhojyathaam

meaning; donation to one Brahmin is equal that to a crore sudras – feeding one crore Brahmins is equal to constructing a Vishnu temple – making a siva temple is equal to making a crore Vishnu temple – feeding a knowledgeable person is equal to making one crore siva temple.

This inner meaning can be read in many ways, in this context it says all Brahmins are supposed be knowledgeable but not. The real knowledgeable person if not Brahmin too is seen as higher. Thus the learning and teaching is the best service to the people and to god.

The importance of vidyadaanam is given here

annadhaanam param dhaanam, vidyadhaanam athath param

annena kshanikaa thrupti yavath jeevancha vidyaya

Feeding is a good philanthropy activity. But educating is much higher. The food will get digested soon. The education will remain the whole life.

ISHTA POORTHAM

Bharatheeya Dharma talks about two activities. Ishta and Poortha. Ishta karma is the activity that one does for the self, salvation, piece, better life, prosperity, what so ever. The poortha dharma is more of a social commitment.

agnihothram thapa sathyam vedaanaam chaanupaalanam

aadithyam vaisyadhevam cha ishta ithyabhitheeyathe

Service comes under “poortha karma” and it includes digging wells and ponds, feeding the poor, building temples for the spiritual well-being, laying out gardens. Excavating wells and ponds has been mentioned first.

vaapee koopa thadakaani dhevathanayathanani cha

anna pradhanamudyannam poortha ithyabhitheeyathe

Ishta will take people to swarga and poortha can give moksha. Thus the social service is seen as higher.

ishtathelabhathe swargam poorthe mokshamavapuyeth

Moksha (Freedom or Salvation) from the cycle of birth and death is the ultimate goal of Hindu religious life. Moksha is the state of supreme bliss and there is no quest beyond it. Moksha is release from all attachments. It is a state in which the self remains ever in fully freedom and blessedness. The chief purpose of religion is to teach us how this supreme state may be attained.

Panchmahayajna include brahmayajna, devayajna, pitruyajna, manusyayajna, and bhoothayajna. Chanting of the veda constitutes brahmayajna. Sacrifices and puja are devayajna. Tharpana is pitruyajna. Feeding guests is manushyayajna. Offering bali to various creatures is bhuthayajna. The Panchamahayajna together with agnihotra and aupasana are to be performed everyday.

Four hundred yajnas or sacrifices are said to be mentioned in the Vedas.

Swargalokam - heaven is the place of world after death for the good people and naraka – hell for the bad ones. The swargaloka is not the place of gods. The gandharvas used to be some time at the swarga loka too as guests from their gandhrvaloka.

Samskaras, all forty of them, are to purify the individual.

Vivekananda said that Indians can be influenced only through spirituality.

This was understood long back by the rishis and they have built the education system associated with spirituality.

Environmental education was also not different.

.... thena thekthena bhoonjeetha ,ma vidwisha vahai..

says that let us learn together and eat together.

The first annapraasanam of the baby on the lap of the father, while feeding the first rise bit, any father will tend to pray that let my son get sufficient food. But the rig veda sloka

... dwipathe ... chathushpade...

says when all the two legged and the four legged animals have sufficient food, let my son also have. The exemplary example of living together ands the respect for the other animals in the nature.

The panjamahayajna prescribes the bhootha yajna that is for the other living being in and around. The concept of feeding ants, snakes, etc. is prevailing as the rituals even today.

The temple festival and the pooja do not start without the bali (food) given to the prani (the bhootha yajna. - the other animals around.

The sloka

dasa koopam eka vaapi dasa vaapi eka nadi

dasa nadi eka vruksha dasa vruksha eka puthra

shows the respect that the trees have and the river and the well had.

The ishta karma is for the individual benefit like the pooja, bhajan etc. But the poortha karma which is from the environmental concept

vaapi koopa thadakani ...

this shows the lakes to be cleaned, the trees to be planed so that the benefit is much higher than the ishta karma.

As explained in the sloka

ishtathe labhathe swargam
poorthe mokshamavaapnuyath

The son of the river, the son of the sun, wind, vayu, etc. are the heros and they are in the path of dharma as in the Mahabharata purana. The depicted picture of the heros shows as they are the part and parcel of the environment and they stand for the dharma.
As the one opposite are not in the dharma as they are materialistic.

The concept of the mother earth and the first stepping on the mother earth with the sloka

samudra vasane devi...

shows the respect towards the mother earth. The concept that the earth is the mother itself is of high end imagination and need to be appreciated.

The pithru tharpana at the river and the prayer of praising the rivers is of the concept of ekatha the unified sharing of water among fellow being, this is a good lesson for the people who are fighting for the sharing of the water.

All the yaga / yajna is called the sacrifice, the concept is again for the environmental cleansing. The little bit of ingredients being fed to the agni, the symbolic sun, is with the chanting that

.... idam namama ...

It is to say that the item is not mine but of the sun. It ensures the faith that all that is as it is considered as mine is not mine but belongs the sun and thus to the environment.

The symbolic representation of the god and their pictureaization is to show how the family needs to live in accordance with the nature.

The river on the head of siva, or the lotus on which the brahma sits , the devi mostly on the lion, the karthikeya on the peacock, ganesa on the rat are examples of this life with the environment. The devi and the deva are called by the name of the rivers or the rivers are called by the name of the goddesses shows that they are to be respected. Same is the case with the mountains and places.

Temple had associated pooja for sarpa, cow, elephant.

The kavu, the hub of forest around the temple is the requirement of every temple that is to say that all the group of people in the village needs some place of greenery for the well being.

The people tree and the neem planted together in and around the temple gives a good de-densify oxygen and make the breath smooth and anti-bacterial. Good for the health of the living beings around.

The vasthu concept of traditional India identified the best location for the house, by watching the place of settlement of the cows in the night. This show how human was associated with the nature. The custom of first day on the house warming the entrance of the cow inside the house is a cow. This shows the respect that the human have to the animal. The tradition is still continuing. The house being decorated on festival day with leafs shows the closeness to nature.

In Andhra Pradesh one day people go to the field and stay out in the garden and cook and eat, this is still followed, shows the association with nature.

science behind yoga

 Stars do it. Sports do it. Judges in the highest courts do it. Let's do it: that yoga thing. A path to enlightenment that winds back 5,000 years in its native India, yoga has suddenly become so hot, so cool, so very this minute. It's the exercise cum meditation for the new millennium, one that doesn't so much pump you up as bliss you out. Yoga now straddles the continent — from Hollywood, where $20 million-a-picture actors queue for a session with their guru du jour, to Washington, where, in the gym of the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and 15 others faithfully take their class each Tuesday morning.

Everywhere else, Americans rush from their high-pressure jobs and tune in to the authoritatively mellow voice of an instructor, gently urging them to solder a union (the literal translation of the Sanskrit word yoga) between mind and body. These Type A strivers want to become Type B seekers, to lose their blues in an asana (pose), to graduate from distress to de-stress. Fifteen million Americans include some form of yoga in their fitness regimen — twice as many as did five years ago; 75% of all U.S. health clubs offer yoga classes. Many in those classes are looking not inward but behind. As supermodel Christy Turlington, a serious practitioner, says, "Some of my friends simply want to have a yoga butt." But others come to the discipline in hopes of restoring their troubled bodies. Yoga makes me feel better, they say. Maybe it can cure what ails me.

Oprah Winfrey, arbiter of moral and literary betterment for millions of American women, devoted a whole show to the benefits of yoga earlier this month, with guest appearances by Turlington and stud-muffin guru Rodney Yee. Testimonials from everyday yogis and yoginis clogged the hour: I lost weight; I quit smoking; I conquered my fear of flying; I can sleep again; it saved my marriage; it improved my daughter's grades and attitude. "We are more centered as a team," declared the El Monte Firefighters of Los Altos Hills, Calif.

Sounds great. Namaste, as your instructor says at the end of a session: the divine in me bows to the divine in you. But let's up the ante a bit. Is yoga more than the power of positive breathing? Can it, say, cure cancer? Fend off heart attacks? Rejuvenate post-menopausal women? Just as important for yoga's application by mainstream doctors, can its presumed benefits be measured by conventional medical standards? Is yoga, in other words, a science?

By even asking the question, we provoke a clash of two powerful cultures, two very different ways of looking at the world. The Indian tradition develops metaphors and ways of describing the body (life forces, energy centers) as it is experienced, from the inside out. The Western tradition looks at the body from the outside in, peeling it back one layer at a time, believing only what it can see, measure and prove in randomized, double-blind tests. The East treats the person; the West treats the disease. "Our system of medicine is very fragmented," says Dr. Carrie Demers, who runs the Center for Health and Healing at the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the USA in Honesdale, Pa. "We send you to different specialists to look at different parts of you. Yoga is more holistic; it's interested in the integration of body, breath and mind."

The few controlled studies that have been done offer cause for hope. A 1990 study of patients who had coronary heart disease indicated that a regimen of aerobic exercise and stress reduction, including yoga, combined with a low-fat vegetarian diet, stabilized and in some cases reversed arterial blockage. The author Dr. Dean Ornish is in the midst of a study involving men with prostate cancer. Can diet, yoga and meditation affect the progress of this disease? So far, Ornish will say only that the data are encouraging.

To the skeptic, all evidence is anecdotal. But some anecdotes are more than encouraging; they are inspiring. Consider Sue Cohen, 54, an accountant, breast-cancer survivor and five-year yoga student at the Unity Woods studio in Bethesda, Md. "After my cancer surgery," Cohen says, "I thought I might never lift my arm again. Then here I am one day, standing on my head, leaning most of my 125-lb. body weight on that arm I thought I'd never be able to use again. Chemotherapy, surgery and some medications can rob you of mental acuity, but yoga helps compensate for the loss. It impels you to do things you never thought you were capable of doing."

A series of exercises as old as the Sphinx could prove to be the medical miracle of tomorrow — or just wishful thinking from the millions who have embraced yoga in a bit more than a generation.

Yoga was little known in the U.S. — perhaps only as an enthusiasm of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and other icons of the Beat Generation — when the Beatles and Mia Farrow journeyed to India to sit at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968. Since then, yoga has endured more evolutions of popular consciousness than a morphing movie monster. First it signaled spiritual cleansing and rebirth, a nontoxic way to get high. Then it was seen as a kind of preventive medicine that helped manage and reduce stress. "The third wave was the fitness wave," says Richard Faulds, president of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass. "And that's about strength and flexibility and endurance."

At each stage, the most persuasive advocates were movie idols and rock stars — salesmen, by example, of countless beguiling or corrosive fashions. If they could make cocaine and tattoos fashionable, perhaps they could goad the masses toward physical and spiritual enlightenment. Today yoga is practiced by so many stars with whom audiences are on a first-name basis — Madonna, Julia, Meg, Ricky, Michelle, Gwyneth, Sting — that it would be shorter work to list the actors who don't assume the asana. (James Gandolfini? We're just guessing.)