One such interview took place at the Links on Sunday, 11 February 1940. The reporter began by asking:
“Do you accept the principle now usually accepted in the West that science and religion deal with different spheres?”
“It depends upon how it is understood,” Baba stated. “If science deals only with material advancement, then such science would be said to have nothing of spirituality. But when the same science is expressed to make the meaning of life clear, then it is also a branch of spirituality — just as art, if expressed rightly, is spiritual, if expressed wrongly, material.”
“You mean scientific truths and principles are valid so far as they go, and are to be fitted in with spiritual doctrine?”
“They can be fitted in. What is the gross world, after all, but the medium of realizing spirituality? For example, the body is purely material, physical and gross, but it is the medium for the soul to know itself, provided it is dealt with and handled rightly; otherwise, it becomes a hindrance to spiritual progress. Similarly, scientific principles and truths, if used rightly, help in the spiritual progress of the universe, but if improper use is made of them, they are bound to be a source of hindrance in the spiritual path.”
-www.lordmeher.org, p2077
February, 1940; Bangalore