​QA on Science & Religion at Cambridge University

Talk show at Queens College, Cambridge University, UK

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So, what inspired you to give up engineering? I don’t think I ever gave up engineering. I just taken up a different kind of engineering. I like to think of this as inner engineering.
So, I was born and brought up in a pious family in India. And for me, the goal of my life was academic achievement. Am I already behind? So, I always wanted to be the topper.
Number one in whatever I studied. And I was always among the toppers. Second, third, joint first.
Never the first. So, that was my dream life. And one of my hobbies in my childhood was just pick up dictionary and memorise words.
So, I was good at English. And then I gave G.I.M. At that time, many Indians struggled in English. I was already good in English.
So, I got 25 out of 2400 at that time. That was two decades ago. I was not the first in my college.
I was the first in the history of my college. I was the first in the whole state of Maharashtra. So, that was all my dreams come true.
Or so I thought. But then, after some time, I found that just looking at the marks, marks doesn’t give any happiness. It’s only when somebody comes and congratulates.
So, congratulations. That’s when you feel some happiness. And then I found that two, three of my friends didn’t congratulate me.
Then, I started feeling so irritated. Is it in your way? I’m not congratulating you. It’s your music.
And this happened three times. The fourth time once it happened, that time it was like I suddenly got an epiphany. I saw myself from, I envisioned seeing myself from overhead.
I thought, I’ll become happy by becoming a talker. But actually, becoming a talker has made me more dependent for my happiness on others. It’s only when this person congratulates me that I feel happy.
If it doesn’t, then I’m feeling dissatisfied. Tomorrow I can do another exam. I may crack that exam also.
But still, this principle of being dependent on externals for happiness will still remain. And, I just want to start exploring something more. And, that was the time when I got the Bhagavad Gita explained by Krila Prabhupada, who’s probably the greatest exponent of Bhakti Yoga in modern times.
And I had heard about the Bhagavad Gita. I had read some of it earlier. But here, things started falling into place.
And when I understood that our inner self is spiritual, and there’s spiritual happiness to be had by developing an inner spiritual connection, then I started focussing on that more and more. While I was doing this, I was also involved in some social service in India. I was part of an organisation which focused on, which had many things.
My interest was in education. I always was a great believer in the power of education, in helping people, in transforming people. So I would go to a nearby slum near my college.
And I would teach the slum children English, History, Mathematics. And I found that most of these children, their fathers and their families were alcoholics. And there was domestic abuse, domestic violence.
And I started thinking, when those children would talk with me, am I really tangible when their lives are so much busy? And I would talk with their fathers. The fathers were nice people. It was not that they were some two-horned demons or anything like that.
But these kids told me that when they took in alcohol, it just became a different place. So our organisation was seeing this problem at a bigger scale. And we decided to diversify into trying to get people to become sober.
So one of my friends was much more in social service. And he went to a village. And he actually made the whole village sober.
He brought everyone to drink alcohol. And we considered that to be a big success of our organisation. But then one day he came back and he just fallen.
And I asked, what happened? And he said that a couple of days ago in this village there had been the local municipality elections. And one of the candidates, in order to woo the voters, had brought two full truckloads of alcohol. And given it free to everyone.
And not only the fathers, even the children had taken alcohol. So it was… So that got me thinking. Is this really… What are we doing? Are we really helping people? Our intention is there.
But are we really helping people? So this was… Somebody was saying these people are uneducated. That’s why they succumb to alcohol. But I knew one of my close… One of my friends, he was… He was a talker throughout.
He had eight semesters in electronics and telecommunications engineering in India. So he was number one in university in each of his semesters. And in the campus elections he got the highest paying job in the history of our college at that time.
And he was… He had a dream career chart for more students. And then within six months of getting that job, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and he died. He was a chain smoker.
And he… I mean, he told me that, you know, unless I smoke, I can’t think. So I found something missing here. It was so brilliant.
I can’t… I can’t figure out the way electronics… But why can’t he figure out that smoking is hurting himself? Maybe it is. He probably never thought it would be so serious and so quick an effect coming up. But what this uneducated people, the alcoholics and this very educated student succumbed into addiction, I saw the common denominator is that there is something inside us which works against us.
And which makes us act in some defeating way. So I was also infamous for my shock temper. And after I started practising the principles of Bhagavad Gita, as we started practising mantra meditation, I found that my temper went down substantially.
One of my close friends, I saw that he was just sliding into certain bad habits because of the company in college. And then somehow he also because I was interested, he also became interested in spiritual practise. He was transformed.
He just effortlessly gave up all his bad habits. So from all these examples, I felt that spirituality is a way by which people could be empowered to resist the destructive force within themselves. And they could actually improve it.
I found myself changing for the better. I found others changing for the better. Even after I finished college and I was working in some international software company.
So then and one day if I was working in a company, while working in a company also, I used to go around and do some talks in Bhagavad Gita. So one day it struck me that if I retire from the software company, there will be thousands of other people who will take up this job. But if I am sharing Bhagavad Gita’s wisdom, then if I am not doing it, how am I going to do it? So I felt I can contribute to society in a more distinctive and effective way by sharing the Gita’s spiritual wisdom than by writing software programmes.
And that’s how I decided to try to focus my life on studying and sharing the Gita’s spiritual wisdom. There are many students obviously in the audience. Does that mean if you start reading the Gita that eventually you will want to be in your situation where you want to give everything up, supposedly to become a monk? Is that the highest kind of aspect? Because it seems that if you are a monk, you are practising the Gita 24 hours a day.
So is that the kind of culmination of spirituality? No. Is it that you have to give up everything to practise spirituality? Not necessarily. The principle is that we need to connect with higher spiritual reality.
The Gita explains that there are levels of spiritual reality. We are ourselves souls and there is a higher spiritual reality that is God, the source of everything. So when the soul connects with the source, an experience of higher happens.
And thereafter, one can work more effectively whatever they need. So I would say that if I had not become a spiritual author and spiritual teacher, I would probably have become a scientific researcher and I would have written papers and written books and taught science. So I would say essentially I am doing the same thing which was managed to study and to teach.
So the subject matter is different. Now what the subject matter, what field one pursues that will depend on one’s own interest, one’s own talents, one’s own aspirations. What the Bhagavad Gita tells us is that we make God the ultimate purpose of our life.
So the way I envision it is that what we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. So we have been given some talents and abilities and those we are going to use to make a contribution to society.
How best we can contribute that will vary from person to person. And different people will be inspired to contribute in different ways. Like if you are a school or a college or a university there are maybe 100 students who come to a class.
Out of them how many become professors? Maybe one or two. Sometimes not even one or two. So those who may choose to become full time spiritual teachers they will be a very small handful.
But everybody who learns that knowledge, they will get benefited by that knowledge. So what the Bhagavad Gita’s mood is that Krishna says at the end of the Gita Vimrisheta dasheshine it means deliberate deeply and then decide what you want to do. So do as you desire.
The Gita is not a book of commandments. Rather it is a book of choices. Choices which are guided by the knowledge of the consequences.
So whatever way we feel inspired to contribute in life, that’s the way we can contribute. The Bhagavad Gita’s essential message is that we incorporate a spiritual dimension in our life. That’s the answer.
Any questions or comments? He talks a lot about academics. We wouldn’t be here if academics weren’t here to talk about it. But there’s some competitiveness that’s associated with it.
You always hear academics because you want to be up there or you want to achieve what you can achieve. But whatever you don’t achieve and you feel a little bit of pain inside. You’re sad a little bit because you didn’t reach there.
And you speak to your friends and they did achieve that. You feel a little bit bad. How do you get over that? What is the aptitude you have to that feeling? So brothers, if we don’t achieve what we set out to achieve, how do we overcome the bad feeling that comes with it? There are two broad schools of thought in Sanskrit.
They’re called as Karmavada and Daivavada. Karmavada means karma. Everything is in my hands.
If I study, if I work, I will achieve. The other extreme is called as Daivavada. Daivavada is, in English, called as fatalism.
Everything is destined. Nothing is in my hands. Now, certainly our thoughts, we call it the idea of fatalism.
Everything is in my hands. Which is true. It’s definitely in our hands.
But it’s not only in our hands. It means there are factors beyond our control which also shape the results. There is practically no activity as performance-driven as sports.
Sports people have to perform to succeed. And yet, many sports players are notorious for their quirky superstitions. Australia is probably the most aggressive cricket team.
When I went to Australia, last year, I had gone to Australia, I found that Australian people are very gentle, very laid-back, very comfortable to be with. I asked some of my friends over there. They said, yes, Australians are laid-back in everything except cricket.
So, they are infamous for sledging. They are infamous for being very aggressive on the field. And yet, even the HFV who was, as my friend biographed it, in it to win it.
That was their mood. But several of the top Australian players had their own superstitions. Their captain, Steve Waugh, earlier captain, he would always have a red handkerchief in his pocket.
Three-fourths inside, one-fourth outside. And he was a very good fielder. Sometimes, he would drop a catch.
First, you would see if the handkerchief was fallen down. How did I drop the catch? There was another well-known batsman, Mark Taylor. Whenever he would go out to bat, before going out, he would go to the restroom and make sure that all the lids of the commode were closed.
And if he got out early, he would instead of going to his family and first going to the restroom, if any commode lid was open, he would go and blast all his team players. Why didn’t you keep that open? Because of that, I got out. This is stupid.
You’re getting out. What is it they got to do in the commode? He also knows, he would practise. Steve also.
Very good for practising. Very legal, Steve. The point is anybody who is in sports, they know that performance matters, but performance is not all that matters.
There is something beyond their performance, which also shapes the results. And in their own idiosyncratic way, they are trying to appease that unknown. You are putting a, carrying a handkerchief, shutting the lid of the commodes, or maybe wearing an earring only in one ear, or putting a bangle only in one hand.
They all try to appease the unknown. So basically, the point which I’m driving here is that there are certain things in our control and there are certain things not in our control. So, phrase of the equation to say, endeavour plus destiny plus time is equal to the result.
So, our endeavour is important. An example for this could be farming. In farming, the farmer has to sow the seed, plough the land, that is the endeavour.
And after that, the rains have to come, in time, in proper quantities. That is the destiny. And after that, time has to pass.
When the harvest season comes, then the harvest can begin. So, the same principle applies in everything else. Endeavour plus destiny plus time is the result.
Now, time will pass on its own. But, sometimes the destiny may be favourable, sometimes the destiny may not be favourable. So, if we have endeavoured properly, then we have done our part.
And sometimes the results may come, sometimes the results may not come. But we keep endeavouring. See, when we think that we are the sole doers of our performances, we are the sole producers of the result, then the flip side of that is that I am solely responsible for the lack of results.
So, when we are driven by this ideology that I alone determine the results, then failure doesn’t remain just an event. We take failure personally. Failure becomes not an event, but it becomes a policy.
We start thinking that, oh, maybe something’s wrong with me. We should introspect to check whether I did not do anything properly. And we can improve on that.
But if we have done our part, and sometimes results don’t come despite our having done our part, we need to know that what I have done, it has not gone in vain. See, the destiny is what we call as destiny is also a result of the accumulation of our past actions. So, if you consider like a big water tank, then the actions that we are doing are like going the water inside the tank.
And the results we are getting is like the water coming out of the tank. So, now, if earlier somebody had put earlier in that tank unclean water had been put. Now, I am putting in clean water, but I am getting unclean water from the other side.
But the clean water I am putting in, that will also come out eventually. So, like that, sometimes, despite our doing my good effort, some results may not come. So, at that time, we don’t have to feel bad.
What we should say is that, did I do my best? I do my best, eventually the result will come. And we just keep on seeing. And that’s why it’s very important that we have a spiritual self-understanding.
Because we understand that I am spiritual, I am instructable, I am loved by God, I am eternally a part of God. Then we get internal security. Then external ups and downs won’t affect us so much.
Do you know if I was to go to the Cambridge campus or even to my own campus in London and tell people what you just said, that I have inner security because I am a part of God, and I’m connected to God, they’d probably laugh at me. They’d say, that’s because of your own insecurity, you’ve created this paradigm that there is a God. You’ve created these theories of like karma.
So then, how can we be sure that it’s not just a figment of my imagination, that I’ve created this paradigm of God which is nice and it kind of is for the masses, and how can we know it’s actually a real thing. So, could God be just a crutch for the weak mind? Yeah. Let me take the second part first.
You said, theory of karma is something which we have created. Yeah, now if we see cause and effect is something which we implicitly assume in whatever we do. Say, you go back to your house and you find maybe a relative or some friend who’s got a bird on their hand.
First question you ask, what happened? What happened means you assume that the bird didn’t just come by chance, there must be some cause. So seeing an effect, we implicitly assume there is a cause. In fact, the event that is said to have begun modern science, that also has this implicit understanding of cause and effect.
And Newton saw the fruit falling. Now, millions of people had seen fruits falling before him. Most of them just picked up the fruit, ate it and went away.
Newton asked the question, what made this fruit fall? And that, the answer to that, was what led to the development of the theory of gravity and eventually it set off the engine for the development of modern science. So, whether it is in our day-to-day observations or whether it is in the field of science, we implicitly assume that there are correspondence between effects and causes. When I see an effect, when I see an event, I assume there is a cause to it.
So now, what spirituality tells us is it simply extends this cause-effect connection further. So, the assumption is, by further I mean that we have this life span but spirituality says that the cause-effect chain is not limited to this life span. We as spiritual beings, we have lived before and we live after this.
Some causes have effects in this life itself and that’s like seeds. A, we sow some weeds or some grasses, they might just grow in a week or so. If we sow some grains, they may take a few months.
If I sow a mango tree, it may take a few years to grow mangoes. In nature, we see that different seeds take different times to fructify. Like that, different actions are like seeds but they take different times to fructify.
So, actions are causes which produce effects. This idea of cause and effect is something which is implied, implicitly accepted and the karma theory is simply the extension of this principle to beyond this life. That’s all.
So, it’s not a great leap of faith. It’s simply a reasonable extrapolation from what we know and assume to know as right. Now, coming to the point about the existence of God being a crutch for the weak mind, once you get into psychology and psychological projections, then the sword can cut both ways.
We could turn the argument and say that atheism could be a crutch for the disbelievers. Isn’t it? You don’t want to believe in God or you don’t want to be considered accountable for your actions and in order to justify this lack of accountability, you justify that by assuming that there is no God. So, the point I’m making here is that if we start assuming that okay, these people are weak, that’s why they need to believe in God.
But I could turn it around, there are people who are weak, that’s why they need to disbelieve in God. By here I just change the definition of weak by saying these people don’t have the self-control to, don’t have the self-monstery to regulate their actions. And because they are thus weak and they want to succumb to their weaknesses, they want to do what they want to do and to justify their succumbing to their desires, they come up with the ideology that there is no God.
So, the argument could turn both ways. Is my reasoning clear, what I’m saying over here? Is it clear? I mean, you don’t have to agree with it, but just what I’m saying is it clear, that’s what I’m asking. Laughter So, the second, more important point is where is the evidence that people who believe in God are weak? It’s just an assumption.
From the last, this idea that God is a God is a projection of the human mind, that was pioneered by Sigmund Freud. He was in the turn of the last century, 1910, 1920, that period. And since that time, science and scientific research has been used to try to support this idea that many surveys have been done to check what is the correlation between religious belief and people’s physical and mental health.
And the Oxford University published a book called Handbook of Religion and Health and there they compiled 2000 published results. These were already published in journals elsewhere, they just compiled them all together. 2000 studies of the correlation between religious belief on one side and parameters of physical health such as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, heart disease, stroke and other such degenerative diseases and parameters of mental health such as stress, depression, hypertension, these things.
And the suicidal urges, addictions and they found consistently that people who believed in God, not just believed in the abstract sense, but people who attended this programme at least once a week, on an average they lived 7 years more than their non-religious peers. Not only that, elderly people with a sense of, with a personal belief, with a belief in a person God, they had a greater sense of life satisfaction and well-being than the non-religious peers. Younger people, they had far lesser involvements in addictions, in criminal delinquency and in other such and difficult behaviours than their, again, non-religious peers.
Overall, so Harold Cunningham was the lead researcher in this study and he concluded that, he used the word SQ. SQ is spiritual quotient. Like we have intellectual quotient, emotional quotient, spiritual quotient.
He said a high SQ faithfulness to God appears to benefit people of all ages, levels, educational levels and backgrounds. Consistently, there has been demonstrated that people who believe in God are stronger. They are better physically and mentally.
So, this idea that people who believe in God just need a crutch. There is no basis for this in sociological study. It could be that some people are weak and belief in God strengthens them.
But it’s not necessary. Even people who are intelligent, people who are rational, people who are already strong achievers in their lives, they also turn towards God. So, it can act as a crutch for some people.
The last point I would like to make in response to this is, even if it is a crutch, even if belief in God is something which helps weaker people to become strong, that itself does not either prove or disprove the existence of God. All that it says is this acts as a crutch. So, it doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist.
All that it proves is it acts as a support system. Does that answer your question? Yes, please. So, what you are saying is that religion may improve the longevity or quality of personal life, but that doesn’t prove that it is not a crutch.
Yeah, I mean, as far as the specific existence of God is concerned, that’s a different question. I was only addressing whether it is a whether it is a crutch for the weak. I said that there is no evidence that people are weak.
Now, as far as when we come to the existence of God itself, you know, if we look at the atheistic worldview, then, you know, what is the explanation of how things originated? The atheistic worldview, we see that here, science has discovered patterns. All of science progresses because nature behaves according to certain orderly patterns. The law of gravity is one orderly pattern.
Similarly, the laws of mechanics, the laws of thermodynamics, all these are laws which exist in nature. Now, the question comes up where did these laws come from? So, science offers explanations in terms of correlations between the way matter behaves. So, science offers explanations, but the we need an explanation for the explainability of the human beings.
I’ll explain what I mean by that. The explanation for the explainability that means, if we consider the atheistic worldview, whatever be the source of origins, the idea is that everything came about by undirected chance. And now, if I say, consider F is equal to GM1M2 upon R2 or E is equal to MC2.
Conditional equations in science. Now, if everything came about by undirected chance, nature outside, the world outside has come about by undirected chance, the brain inside has come about by undirected chance. If that is the case, now E is equal to MC2, this is a mathematical equation and mathematics is primarily a conception of the human brain.
It may have some correlation with outside reality, but primarily it’s a conception of the human brain. So, why is it that the thoughts in my head and the things in the outside world have a precise correlation? Not just a precise correlation, precise correlation of mathematical precision. So, E is equal to MC2 is a conception in my head and the outside in the nature, this is what I see.
So, what brings about this correlation? So, God is the explanation for explainability. Science, all its progress is based on the assumption. Assumption is just another word for faith.
It’s based on the faith that nature has an underlying order. Now, from the atheistic worldview I see, what is the rationale of this order? Why should such an order exist? There is no reason why the order should exist. But, even when science comes up with evidences which seem to contradict the idea that nature works according to some order, scientists still maintain their faith and they hope that in future we’ll find some theory which explains what we can’t explain right now.
So, science assumes the explainability of the universe. But, where does explainability come from? So, one of India’s most famous mathematicians was Srinivas Ramanujan. I was told that he studied here itself.
And, he said that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God. E is equal to mc squared. Why is it equal? It’s equal because that equality is arranged by some hypothesis.
Newton said that, Oh God, I think thy thoughts after thee. So, we saw his scientific discoveries not simply as understanding the way nature works. He saw scientific discoveries as spiritual insights into the way God has arranged, God has incorporated his wisdom in the fabric of the universe.
So, the very explanatively, the way science works by explaining the universe in terms of how it functions. But, that very explainability of science requires an explanation. And that, the most reasonable explanation for that is God.
So, we don’t see science and God as contradictory. We see science and God as complementary. God is not the explanation for the unexplainable.
God is actually the explanation for explainability. But, does it come to our minds to think about certain aspects that may exist outside of nature? So, for example, maybe we don’t want that to exist. So, maybe God exists outside of nature.
Is that the divine explanation? Okay. So, if we say something exists outside nature, are we complicating matters by saying that God exists? Yeah. And linked with that, I guess, do we need to consider ourselves in the existence of God to be spiritual? Okay.
Two different questions here. First is that it’s not a matter of complicating matters whether we consider something exists outside nature or not. It’s a matter of just getting a complete picture of things.
So, for example, consider a billiards board. On a billiards board, when, say, a particular ball goes into a hole, now, we could explain why that ball went into the hole in terms of the laws of physics. This ball hit this ball at this angle outside of a chain of motions and that’s how this ball went into the hole.
That’s the correct explanation. At the same time, if I’m just looking at the billiards table, but I look at, oh, this player who’s handling the billiards table, they are a very expert player and because that player hit the ball so precisely, by the expertise of that player, the ball went into the hole. These two explanations are not contradictory.
They are complementary. So, the laws of physics, laws of motion determining the ball going into the hole and the expertise of the billiards player determining the ball going into the hole, both are complementary explanations. The same way, if we are focussing on science as a tool for looking for natural explanation, material explanation for material phenomena, then we may be satisfied with those explanations.
But if we are looking for understanding the totality of reality, then God, as a complement, as a foundation to the explanatory mechanism of science, that works impeccably. So, are we complicating matters? No, we are simply trying to understand the complete reality. So, laws, they explain the patterns by which causes and effects are correlated.
Now, laws themselves are not causes per se. Now, say there’s an India-Pakistan cricket match going on and the last ball, we need a boundary and the batsman just swings and the ball goes over the boundary. It’s a sixer and they win the match.
And then, say, the post-match interview is asked, how did you hit that sixer? The batsman says, by the law of gravity. By the laws of motion. The laws of gravity, the laws of motion, they are a part of it.
But that’s not, that laws of gravity they cannot explain how the ball came into existence, how the bat came into existence, how the cricket field came into existence, how the batsman came into existence. The laws of motion can very well explain, okay, the batsman had hit the ball with this force. If I hit it with a little less force, he might have even caught on the boundary.
Or the ball might have fallen into it earlier when he fielded. That can explain. So, we have to have a set of things existing before laws can act on them.
So, the laws are not exhaustive explanations. They explain things once, they explain the interaction between things after the things exist. But the existence of things themselves requires some other explanation.
That’s why we are not complicating things, we are simply expanding the ambit of explainability by considering non-material factors. Did I answer your question? Yeah, no, that’s why I was saying we should remove ourselves from nature where we don’t necessarily need to concern ourselves with cause and effect, in some cases, that we see in patterns and things that we see in nature and perceive. That’s why I’m saying that it could complicate things because then you don’t need that explanation if everything is already if it exists independently.
I got your question. I was saying that if we just remove ourselves as observers, as conscious beings from pattern of nature, then the patterns of nature explain everything. Yes.
See, I have a whole seminar on science and spirituality. The way I put it is that science makes things better. Spirituality makes people better.
So science is primarily concerned with the outer world. Science cannot tell us anything about origin or anything, you know. It cannot tell us anything about values, what is right and what is wrong.
And it cannot tell us about purpose. What am I existing for? What is the purpose of my existence? So, origin, value and purpose. These are things which science cannot really answer.
Einstein, probably the greatest scientist of the last century, he admitted the disturbing implications of a rigidly scientific world. There is science and there is scientism. When science is made into an ideology that makes absolute truth claims, then science morphs into scientism.
So he said that if we took a scientific world view, not scientific world view, then the implications would be that the millions of Nazis, the Nazis who killed millions of Jews, you know, they just did it because their brain chemicals told them to do it. And we are nothing but brain chemicals. And then he said there would be nothing morally right or wrong with what we do.
Because if we treat the atheistic world view with logical conclusion, our consciousness is simply a product of our brain chemicals. And the brain chemicals are governed by the laws of nature. So, just as if I take some object and drop it, it has no freedom whether to follow it.
So the implication of the scientific world view is that we have no freedom. We are simply products of the patterns of our brain chemicals. And that would be no justice, no accountability.
You know, I can come to you right now and slap you. Why did you slap me? My brain chemicals told me twice. You can slap me twice.
My brain chemicals told me. Accountability and accountability is foundational to all human relationships. And if we have no freedom, there is no accountability.
So he said that Einstein said that we can talk about the ethical foundations of science. Is science being ethical? Or is it being unethical? But we can’t talk about the scientific foundations of ethics. Ethics comes from some other source.
So, we can empower ourselves with scientific knowledge for the purposes of functioning in this world externally. But we close ourselves to other forms of knowledge which can empower us internally for learning about our origins, learning about values, learning about the purpose of life. Is there a question? Yes.
So, I work in a software company and regularly have an argument with my colleagues about science because there are people who embrace religion and embrace science. So we are two different things. In my view, I consider science also sort of religion in the sense that I can’t really accept the idea that research is a tool.
I can’t really accept that as a tool because they are always building up their time. But my colleagues think that science is something we should trust as a tool. So I feel that it’s also their religion.
So the question is, is science actually a religion? Is science a religion? No, not science. Science is not. Scientism is.
Science is basically a tool for acquiring knowledge. It’s like if I have spectacles. Now are these spectacles theistic or atheistic? The spectacles are not.
When a person will see through them, that person may be theistic or atheistic. Just as the spectacles give me an enhanced vision of what I’m seeing. So science uses an enhanced vision of the world around us.
Science is simply a tool for acquiring knowledge. And this tool can give us phenomenal knowledge about how things work. But there are many things which science cannot tell us.
And this is something which even scientists themselves have admitted. So science has its scope. And admitting its scope is very important.
So when science is assumed to be omniscient, that’s where the problem comes up. Let me show you something here. So basically there’s a Nobel laureate here who says that what science does is science offers us precise knowledge.
Let me just paraphrase what he’s saying. Yeah. So this is… I’m not able to find this quote right now.
What he says is science can help us to give a… to arrange the… to explain the observed phenomena in a dazzlingly precise way. But at the same time, science doesn’t tell us anything about good or bad. It doesn’t tell us anything about mortality or eternality.
It doesn’t tell us anything about a tasty or lack of taste or delicious or not so tasty, about beautiful or not so beautiful. I can make a photoshop design on my computer. I can come to know precisely how much colour is 33% red, 41% black, 7% yellow.
But at the end of it, I can… The computer can’t tell me whether it looks good or not. I need a conscious observer to know whether it is good or not. So science is a tool for giving us knowledge.
And that tool when it is made omnipotent, sorry, omniscient, then that is no longer science. Science is basically the tool which looks for material explanations for material phenomena. Now whether non-material factors exist or not, that is outside the jurisdiction of science.
Now if somebody says… if any scientist says that there is no God, that is not a scientific statement. That is a philosophical statement. It’s a difference.
Because the existence of God is not… because God by definition is non-material. Whether something non-material exists or not, that material science has no jurisdiction to say. So here what is happening? That means that person is of an atheistic orientation and that person is using science to justify their atheism.
So science is simply a tool for acquiring knowledge. It can be used for theistic purposes, it can be used for atheistic purposes. So it’s not that science and religion are contradictory.
Rather the contradiction is not… the conflict is not between science and religion. The conflict is between a materialistic worldview and a spiritual worldview. And science is caught in between.
So atheists often try to misappropriate science to justify their atheism. But science doesn’t tell us anything about anything that exists beyond matter. It just can’t tell.
If I cast a… if I go fishing and I take a fishing net with me which is… which has holes say of 1 inch by 1 inch. Then no matter how long I fish, if there are any aquatics smaller than 1 inch by 1 inch, this is going to slip out. The fishing net is primarily meant to catch big fish.
So like that when science casts a net to acquire knowledge of the world, that knowledge it is looking only for material explanation for material phenomena. So non-material factors, non-material explanations slip out of the net of scientific knowledge. And that’s why we need an alternative way of looking for other explanations.
So rather than seeing science and religion as contradictory or as in conflict, we can trace back and look at the world views of the people. And there are a significant number of scientists also who are believers. There are scientists who are non-believers.
And most scientists are basically functional scientists. That means they use science as a tool for earning their living, for pursuing their profession. And they don’t really use science to get into metaphysical questions of whether God exists or doesn’t exist.
So science itself is a value-neutral tool of knowledge. One of the defining aspects of science is it is said to be amoral. Not moral, not immoral, but amoral.
Science does not make any moral judgments about any situation. That means if say a boy has got a grandmother who has left her inheritance for him and that grandmother is elderly now, through science that boy can come to know that if I put arsenic in my grandmother’s breakfast I can get to my inheritance faster. But should I put it or should I not put it? That no science textbook will tell you.
I am not saying science will tell you do this. Science is amoral. That’s why it doesn’t tell anything about morality, about right or wrong.
Similarly there are scientists who are very moral but that their morality is coming from their character, their upbringing, their nature. It is not coming from their science books. Hitler’s Germany was actually at that time one of the most scientifically developed countries.
And he misappropriated the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is struggle for existence. Hitler’s autobiography is Mein Kampf.
That’s my struggle. So direct play off from that idea. So his idea was he adopted or extrapolated not he, the scientists at that time who did that also.
They extrapolated Darwinian theory onto human beings. And they said human races are in conflict and he had the idea that we Nazis are the fittest race and the Jews are the most unfit race. So nature is only going to eliminate the unfit but we will help nature on the way.
So he used science to rationalise the holocaust. He used science to execute the holocaust. Now science is not held responsible for this.
Science is a tool and that tool can be used by people who are dictatorial. Science is a tool that can be used by people who are democratic. Similarly science is a tool that can be used by people who are atheistic and a tool that can be used by people who are theistic.
Does that answer your question? How do you justify the existence of suffering and inequality in the world? So how do we justify the existence of suffering in this world with God’s existence? Two different things are there over here. First is there is the fact of suffering. There is the fact of inequality and suffering in this world.
So now we have three broad explanations for this. One is it is by chance. So life becomes like a lottery and some people are winners, some people are losers.
Here the losers bad luck. What to do? It’s a very disempowering world. It’s creating insecurity.
It’s a chance. Today I’m lucky, tomorrow I might just become unlucky. What to do about it? The other alternative is to say that God has caused this.
Which actually is in some ways even more distressing. Because if God is discriminatory, God makes some people wealthy, some people poor, some people healthy, some people sick. How can I worship such a God? So some people say that no, God’s justice is different.
This is an exam from God. This is a test from God. Yeah, the idea of testing is fine.
But suppose after you do a course, you are given question papers. And all of you get different question papers. Some get easy question paper, some get a difficult question paper.
The question will not be why we have an exam, but why we have testing. The question is why do we have differential testing? Different testing for different people. So the idea that God is testing us, it doesn’t explain why God tests us differently.
So now, when people are just faced with these two alternatives, either believe in chance as the explanation for this or God as the explanation. It’s often people choose chance, not because they really don’t believe that there is no order, but rather the idea of worshipping a God who is so discriminatory, that doesn’t just sit well with our head in the heart. Could there be a third explanation? Suppose we saw, let’s say there is a cricket match.
And there is one team which starts with a score of 0. Another team that is starting with a score of 200. Hey, what’s going on? One is starting with 0, the other is 200. How would you explain that? One could be, you know, the scoreboard is jinxed.
Scoreboard is messed up. Some people get a good score while some people get a bad score. The other explanation could be that the scorekeeper is biassed.
The scorekeeper has given this team a higher score. A third explanation could be maybe this is a test match and this is the second thing is going on. So a team which seems to have a score of 200, that is the lead it has accumulated from its previous innings.
Team which has less score, that’s because from our previous innings they didn’t do so well in the previous innings. So if we see life as a multi-life progression, then where we are right now is determined by what we had done in our previous lives. So the inequities that we see in life, they are a result of our own actions from previous lives.
And God is not their cause. We ourselves are the cause of where we are. This is a very empowering worldview because that means wherever I am, if I work right, I can move forward.
This view actually redefines the universe as a university wherein somebody might be a postgraduate student, somebody might be a kindergarten student but the postgraduate student knows that I also have to go to kindergarten sometime and the kindergarten student knows that if I keep studying, I’ll get there also. So we all can grow and evolve from where we are. And this is a worldview which reconciles the goodness of God with the presence of suffering in this world.
Most important thing is that God is not the cause of the suffering. God is the cure for the suffering. That means when we come closer to God, when we absorb ourselves in devotion to God, when we pray to God, that gives us inner strength to deal with life’s issues.
Say it’s very cold outside and the cold outside is there but as soon as we come into a room where there is temperature regulation where there is artificial heating, we feel relieved from the cold. Similarly, in the world there is suffering but when we connect with God, at that time we experience inner relief, inner strength. So I’ll conclude with an anecdote.
Once a person who was a believer, he went to a doctor and the doctor happened to be an atheist. He said, you believe in God? Yes. How can you believe in God? So many people are suffering, so many calamities are happening.
So this person, he didn’t say anything. He took his prescription and went. After a few minutes he came back into the doctor’s clinic.
He says, there are no doctors in the city. What do you mean? He says, come out. He took the doctor out and just outside on a footpath there was a beggar.
He was coughing piteously and says the very fact that he is sick proves that there are no doctors in the city. Isn’t that crazy? He is sick because he is not coming to me. He said, exactly.
People are suffering because they are not coming to God. If they come closer to God, they truly become godly. Suffering in this world can substantially be reduced.
So God is not the cause of suffering, He is the cure for the suffering. If that is your question. Just a quick follow up on that.
But why do we have to go to God? Because God is all powerful. Surely He can just cure the suffering. Why do we have to approach Him? So why do we have to approach God to get relief from suffering? He is omnipotent.
Can’t He relieve us from suffering directly? Yes, He can. But here we have to understand what the nature of the suffering is. So we see a person who is starving, maybe all that person is suffering.
Yes, a person who is not having food is suffering. But then look at if the lack of food were the sole cause of suffering, then all the people who have food should be happy. But are all the people who have food happy? Are the well fed people happy? They have their own sets of problems.
They have stress, they have hypertension, they have obesity. So there are so many problems. So the lack of food is a problem, but the presence of food is not a solution.
So suffering ultimately is because we want lasting happiness and we are looking for the lasting in the future. That means say we are lost in a desert and there is an oasis. If we go there, we get abundant water.
But if I go off to the mirages, I won’t get that. The problem is that everything in this world is temporary and we want lasting fulfilment, lasting happiness through the temporary. That is like wanting water in a mirage.
It’s just not going to happen. So we may think of specific causes of suffering. Oh, this person doesn’t have well, this person doesn’t have intelligence, this person doesn’t have this thing.
Yes, they are specific causes of suffering. But even if those specific causes were removed, other things will cause suffering because the very aspiration to get something lasting to get something lasting in that which is temporary. That aspiration itself is bound for frustration.
So just as the person who is thirsty needs to go to an oasis to get water, similarly, we need to go to God and God has given us free will. So it is only when we choose to direct our attention towards the eternal instead of the temporary. So only then we can experience the eternal and find happiness there.
Till we do that, till that time, even God can’t help us because he doesn’t ever take away our free will. So what he does is, he gives us counsel so that we can use the free will wisely. He doesn’t take away our free will.
If I have free will, if by one’s own free will a person chooses to chase after a mirage instead of going to an oasis, then no one can help them. Same way, if we keep chasing the temporary instead of seeking the eternal, then that very choice sentences us to stop. Have you had a question? What is the idea of cause and effect that fights with God itself? Yeah, I’m sorry.
Can you explain something to us? Yeah. So why can’t we apply the cause and effect argument to God itself? Yes, see, we can apply and when we apply it, we have to begin with definitions. If we start off with a particular conception of God, maybe a particular image that we see in a church or in a temple or whatever, where did we come from? Where did that being come from? Here what is happening is, we are looking at a particular depiction, we are looking at a particular conception or depiction of God without understanding the concept of God.
In any field that we begin, there are definitions. And God is defined as the cause of all causes. So if I keep tracing backward, backward, backwards, the point where I stop, that point is God.
So to asking a question like, asking a question like, who is the cause of God? That is like asking a question, why is the circle circular? Why is the circle circular? The definition of circle is circular. Isn’t it? That’s just a matter of definition. So God is by definition the cause of all causes.
That’s why the question, who caused God? That indicates a lack of understanding of the definition of God. Now, I’ll explain this further. What I mean by this is, ultimately if we trace back to origins, we have two options.
Everything came from something or everything came from nothing. And if I say everything came from nothing, we have no correlation of that. We don’t see anywhere something coming from nothing.
Even when scientists sometimes, they say that they see some fundamental particles popping out, they understand, okay, that particle popped out, but some antimaterial particle also came out. And there was a quantum mechanical vacuum or something like that, from which it came out. So we don’t see anywhere anything coming from nothing.
Anything has not come from nothing anywhere in our observation to assume that everything that exists in observation came from nothing. That is an irrational demand on our faith. How can everything have come from nothing? So if everything has come from something, then what is that something from which it came? From the point of pure logic, the cause of all causes cannot have a cause.
Isn’t it? The cause of all causes, if it has a cause, then that cause is the cause of all causes. And to put it another way, if a child reads a novel for the first time and after reading the novel, the child comes to know there’s an author. The child again starts going through the novel.
Where is the author in the novel? Now the author is not in the novel. The author made the timeline, the author made the storyline, the author made the characters, the author made the plot, but the author exists outside the novel. The same way God exists outside the fabric of time and space.
So when we look at the world, we look at the chain of cause and effects. God is not just another thing within existence. God is the foundation of all of existence.
So if as long as we start, if we start with a particular depiction of God, when we think of Christ or Krishna or whatever, if we start with this image and we think okay, where did he come from? That is a, we are starting from a depiction without understanding the concept. First start with the concept. The concept is that God is the cause of all causes.
And now the cause of all causes cannot have a cause. And science also tells us that the universe is not eternal. So basically, things are not just existed the way they have existed for us.
It has a beginning. So to say that the beginning was nothing, that is illogical. How can anything come from nothing? What has become? Everything coming from nothing.
So, now what the nature of that something is from which everything came, that is a matter of question. That is a matter of discussion. That’s a different subject.
So whatever is the point where our tracing of causes, backward going stops, that’s the point of God. So the question is itself illogical. You say where did God come from? Simply understand it.
We are not understanding the definition of God. Think about it. Yeah.
So is it possible to change our destiny by living into a particular path or pursuing a particular goal? That’s your question? Yeah. Destiny is not fixed in an absolute sense. One way to understand it is destiny determines what happens to us.
Destiny doesn’t determine our response to what happens. That is our free will. So for example, we are born in a particular family.
Some people may be born in a wealthy family, some people may be born in a not so wealthy family. Now that is destiny. But what I do, sometimes people who are born in wealthy families just find all the wealth they are given by their parents and they end up poor person.
Others who are born in not so wealthy families, they may learn thriftiness, they may learn to invest and save and they may become wealthy later. So destiny determines what happens to us. It doesn’t determine how we respond to it.
We can see destiny more like a weather forecast. A weather forecast doesn’t tell it’s going to rain today. But that doesn’t mean I have to become drenched.
I may take a raincoat or I may choose to stay indoors or I may take umbrella or whatever. that means if we use the word destiny itself is multivalent and it has different meanings. If we are using destiny in terms of future beyond our control, what happens accordingly, then that destiny is, it only determines what happens to us.
It doesn’t determine how we respond to it. And that response is always in our hands. And by responding appropriately we can definitely create a better future for ourselves.
So to give a simple example, say, now day after tomorrow I’m going back from, I just came from New York to London. And then from London I’m going back to India. So if I’m going in a flight, now once I enter the flight more or less it’s fixed that I’m going from here, I’m going to get into, going to go to Mumbai.
Now what I do in the flight is not fixed. You know, if I pick up a fight with my neighbour while I’m on the flight and maybe I punch the neighbour. When I get down, there will be handcuffs waiting for me.
Isn’t it? Or if I find my neighbour is a very influential person, then I might develop, I might network with a very important contact form that might help me in my future. Or I might just do my work. And then I’m better prepared for what I’m going to face.
But as far as that six hours is concerned, the six hours where I’m going to be is fixed. But what I’m going to do in the six hours is not fixed. So like that destiny determines the broad pattern of things that happen to us.
But we still have free will. And by using our free will properly we can create a better future for ourselves. So that way, that means in the sense of whether we can improve our future by proper choices, we definitely can.
And actually our spirituality helps us to bet, our spirituality increases our ability to tap our ability. What are abilities we have? When we are more spiritual, then our spirituality lifts us above our circumstances. It gives us a greater sense of perspective.
And then we don’t just instinctively react to situations. Okay, this has happened. Somebody insults me.
Instinctive reaction may be to insult them back. But that might only make things worse. If I’m spiritual, then I have the inner perspective.
Okay, this is weird. What is the best way to respond? And this person is just like that. I mean, if I try to counter, it’s only going to make things worse.
Just neglect them and move on. I have more important things to do in life than to counter every charge that is made against me. We may decide more, we get the, we all have certain instinctive patterns of responding, of reacting.
But when we become spiritual, basically we become observers of ourselves. Let’s say this response is coming. I don’t have to act.
This is the way, this impulse is coming. I don’t have to act this way. So that way, our ability to tap our ability is increased by our spirituality.
Because we can choose our responses more. And that’s better, more effective. And that’s how we can create a better future for ourselves.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Yes, please. I want to point out that you don’t have to get on a plane.
Get on the? You were saying that you have to be on a plane. No, I was simply saying that once I get into the plane, that option is there. You mean you can’t get off the plane once you are on the plane? Once the plane has gotten and we are flying, then you really can’t get out of the plane.
So certain patterns in our life are fixed. If you are born in United Kingdom, that is fixed. If you want to immigrate to America, that’s a different thing.
You can do that. But if you are born in a particular place, you are born in a particular climate, particular family, that’s fixed. Does that answer your question? What is the spiritual mark of mine that you used to kill bacteria and viruses? What does spirituality say if you use science to kill bacteria and viruses? Spiritual morality.
What does spiritual morality say? If you use science to kill… See, spirituality helps you understand that all life is essentially like us. So there is a spark of spirit in you and me and a spark of spirit in everyone else. So let me complete this.
Let me complete this. Let me complete this. So now, having said this, there is the principle of also of G.O.G.S.C.G. You know, one life preys on another life for survival.
For Darwin, he said that survival of the fittest. That is a fact of nature. A lion lives by eating a deer.
So that, there is to some extent killing and violence that is unavoidable. I could say that just by my speaking, maybe there are some germs which are going inside my mouth and they are getting crushed when I am moving my mouth. So we cannot live without living.
But let me complete this. Let me complete this. So now, having said that, there is the normal human morality or normal learning morality, decency of trying to cause as less pain as possible.
You know, if I have had a blood test taken from my finger 2-3 times, from my body 2-3 times, next time if I have to be given a blood test in a syringe, then the nurse is a little sensitive, he already has a wound over it, let’s not pierce over it. It will pierce somewhere else. So it’s normal human decency to cause as less pain as possible.
So, I extended the same point. Spirituality tells us that while living in this world, we may have to cause pain to other life forms. But we should cause it as less as possible.
So now how, one major way that as less as possible applies is through vegetarianism. Through vegetarianism because plants have life, animals have life. But animals have a much more developed nervous system.
So they feel far greater pain than animals do. Many times plants don’t even have to decay. Especially when crops are harvested, the life is over.
If you don’t harvest them at that time, they will just decay and die. Fruits just fall off from nature. So, that is a major way in which we can exhibit our spirituality by not causing violence where it is avoidable.
We can live nutritiously by proper choice of vegetarian food also. Now with respect to specific professions which may involve say lab testing on certain microbes, the ideal situation would be that we find alternative ways of doing testing which does not require taking the lives of other life forms. But if there are no alternatives available, then again there is a principle of causing as less pain as possible.
So, by testing on those microbes or whatever we are talking about, if we can save lives of many many people in future, that may be an okay thing to do. But this wanton killing of life forms is definitely undesirable. Does it address your question? Okay, that’s a good question.
So if you are using science as a part of our profession and that involves killing other life forms, does that give karmic consequences? Yes. In a sense that everything that we do has karmic consequences. just by being a part of industrial civilisation, which survives based on extensive deforestation.
We are implicated in the multiple chain or a chain involving multiple links. In that karma also, that is like mass karma or collective karma. So, just by being implicated in a particular society, we get some karma.
So, we can’t just avoid bad karma entirely. With respect to our profession, we can try to choose a profession which involves the minimum karmic implications. And certainly there is killing, that is because the microbes have very less developed, whatever kind of nervous system they have.
The pain they feel is also much lesser. So, the karmic implications are definitely not as grave as killing other life forms, which are having far more developed nervous systems. But there is some karmic implication there.
So, the best way to avoid it is to recognise that two things. If we can’t, if we even within that same profession also, we could shift to some other areas where we are not directly involved in the killing. That is a reasonable change, because as I said, that there are two principles.
One is that we do not, we recognise the karmic culpability and we minimise the pain. The other is that we recognise that we are in a world where we are just implicated because it’s a network. So, we can’t avoid entirely.
And that’s the more important thing than getting into too much of a hair splitting over karmic implications is that we focus on developing a spiritual connection. Because that spiritual connection is what will uplift us. And once we are uplifted, then with that uplifted vision, the spiritually uplifted vision, we will also, ourselves better understand how to deal with the situation.
So, there is a material principle which is quite complex, but there is a spiritual principle which uplifts us. And to explain this is, say a soldier comes, soldier is, there is a country being attacked and soldier fights on the border. And soldier heroically protects the country by ejecting the invaders.
Soldier gets a medal of honour. And a soldier comes back home and in a fit of anger, takes one’s gun and shoots an enemy. The act of shooting is the same, but the consequence will be completely different.
That same soldier will not be punished. So, when that soldier is working in the direction of a higher authority for a higher purpose of protecting the country, that same action may remain the same, but it’s different. So, the most important thing for us to do is to get that higher purpose into our life.
Once that higher purpose comes through a spiritual connection, then exactly… I’m not saying it’s fine. I’m saying that we will be able to resolve how best to deal with that situation according to our time and place circumstances. So, don’t make your spirituality conditional to your material situation.
Wherever we are, we practise spirituality. And by that spiritual connection, you will be able to figure out how best to deal with our specific situation. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful questions and enthusiastic participation. Thank you. So, we want to thank Chetan and Charan coming from all over India to be with us here today.