QA session with Dallas youth

[Evening session at ISKCON, Dallas]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Okay, the question is, so is it possible that some of the Vedas are fallible or not true or interpolated? Yes. Okay, see there are two different concepts.
Interpolation and fallibility. Fallibility means that they are originally themselves wrong. Interpolation means something has been added over there or something has been changed.
So now, in general, you see, as far as sacred texts are concerned, the possibility of interpolation is always there. And even Shri Prabhupada in his Bhagavatam, he says for example, Vishwanath Chakratak was in the 10th Canto, especially there are few places where he says, this verse is not found in this version of the Bhagavatam. In Vishwanath Swami’s commentary, there is one more verse over here.
And this verse is this and this is the commentary. So in the past, the way things would work is that there would be pathantra. Pathantra means somebody has a book, somebody has a Bhagavatam.
Then they have to, if the old copy is getting worn out, they have to rewrite the whole thing. And while rewriting, sometimes spelling mistakes can happen. Sometimes words can be put off a little differently, wrongly.
They have their own process of critical review and correction, but still some things may slip off. So let me complete this. So interpolation is always a possibility.
But especially books that were widely read, some obscure text that nobody has heard of, then anybody can easily tamper it. But books that have been widely read, then the possibility of major interpolation is almost zero. And all the more so for books which have extensive, which have commentaries.
So for example, consider the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is a book which was at least the earliest commentary that we have now is Shankara’s commentary. That is 7th century.
And if you look at his Gita and the Gita today, there is no change. The same 700 verses. And so generally if a book is commented on by a prominent teacher, then the followers of that teacher, they keep that book very carefully.
The commentary they keep and the original text also kept. So in terms of essential meaning, there is no change. Madhvacharya also talks about Mahabharata and Mahabharata Tattvarnayana, written a book on the Mahabharata, analysing the Mahabharata.
He says that there is interpolation in the Mahabharata. And he gives reasons to say this is interpolation here, this is over here, like that. And the important point again, The important point is, just like if we today take a, if you are say having cough and you take a medicine.
Now how do you know whether that medicine is bona fide? Whether that medicine is the same way as it was when it was produced and manufactured? If you decide I will go and trace every single stage to the medicine, it is practically impossible. But the way we know it is, we take the medicine, if it cures us, if it produces the same effect as it produced when it was manufactured purely, then we know that it is the right medicine. Yeah, but we don’t know if this is true until death.
Only until after death do we actually know if it is true. Okay, wait a minute. No, no, wait a minute.
I am not talking about that. So now, if we look at the Bhagavad Gita, what was the effect on Arjuna of the Gita? The effect was that Arjuna was essentially confused about sadhana and sadhya. What is the goal of life and what is the means to that goal? So, by understanding the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna himself tells what is his conclusion.
He says, Krishna you are God. Param brahma param dhama pavitram paramam bhava. And he says, what will I do Krishna? I will serve you.
Arjuna could have chosen, Arjuna had options. Jnana yoga, dhyana yoga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga, like that. He chooses bhakti yoga.
So, in terms of the effect specifically of the text. Now, you are talking about general philosophy and its results. We are going back to Krishna at the end of life.
We are not talking about that. Your question is right now specific. Are the texts themselves interpolated or not? Is the essential meaning changed or not? So, I am telling that the effect that was there of the text on the original student.
The original student is Arjuna. That he understood Krishna to be God and he adopted bhakti as a means of approaching God. Today we see that when people study the Bhagavad Gita, even now thousands of people all over the world are experiencing the same effect.
The people who have not even heard of Krishna in their childhood, they accept Krishna as God and they start practising bhakti towards Him. So, you said the same thing. You said, earlier you said that if it is something this important, like this big, the general meaning, no one would change it, right? It is not possible for someone to change it.
But then why does more people believe that Vishnu is God than Krishna? More people in India, more people, like when we learn about Hinduism and we learn about Indian culture in America, what we are taught in school, what everyone mostly believes in India is that Vishnu is God and Krishna is one of His incarnations. How did something that big get messed up in the process? So, if essential points are not changed, then why is it thought that Vishnu is God and Krishna is incarnation if Krishna is the source? See, first of all, there is no difference between Krishna and Vishnu. They are the same person.
There are specific ways of analysing when the difference will be emphasised and there are specific ways of analysing when the difference will not be emphasised. So, in essence, Krishna is God, in essence Vishnu is God and by worshipping Krishna one can become liberated, by worshipping Krishna we can become liberated. So, in terms of potency, both of them are the same.
Let me complete what I am saying. So, there is identity. In terms of identity, whether it is Vishnu worshippers or Krishna worshippers, neither of them say that the other form is not God.
They all agree that it is God. The second aspect where the difference is stressed is that who is, that actually it’s a difference in mood. Difference in mood means Krishna is like God at home.
Vishnu is like God in office. Same person in office will not manifest the intimate emotions. Say, the Prime Minister of a country or the President of a country.
When that Prime Minister, President goes home, the grandson may make a horse and sit on his back. And he may run around. He may delight in that.
But he is not going to do that at office. So, we see that Krishna exhibits intimate emotions. Sometimes his friends, they sit on top of him.
They make him carry him around. Nobody does that to Vishnu. Vishnu sits on a throne.
So, it’s the same person in two different moods. And Krishna is God. Krishna is God at home.
So, he manifests more emotions, more sweeter, more intimate emotions than Krishna does. So, both of them, they are one person, two forms. So, to say that who is supreme, it’s like asking, is the Prime Minister at office, the Prime Minister, or the Prime Minister at home, the Prime Minister.
It’s one person. Please come. It’s one person.
They are not two different persons. So, there is actually no need for a competition. It is not that, you know, sometimes here we debate, is Krishna God or Vishnu God? But Krishna and Vishnu are not fighting with each other.
I am God, you are God. There is no actually fight. They are the same person, two different moods.
Now, why is the conception that Krishna is the avatar of Vishnu coming? Reason for that is that, as I said, in the Vedas. See, now if say the Prime Minister of India or the President of America has a nickname, the nickname is not going to come in the official, say, US Gazette or the official US documents. But there is also name of the Prime Minister, President or the Head of State.
So, how it is? From the point of view of managing the country, it is the President as an official person. President of office, that name, that mood, that profile is going to be prominent. So, in the Vedas, it is that Vishnu is God in office.
So, Vishnu is the person to whom He is referred to far more. It is not Krishna who is referred to more. Because in this world, when the devatas are in trouble and when they want to pray, at that time, whom do they pray to? They pray to God in office.
It’s like if there is some problem, we go to the police person at the police station. We don’t go to the police person at home. So, we go to the police person at the police station.
So, like that people go to God in office. So, now from the perspective of this world, see, the world is here. Vishnu is here.
Vishnu is here. Vishnu is God in office. Now, same person, Krishna is God at home.
Now, from here, the prayer always goes to Vishnu. And it is in response to the prayer to Vishnu that various avatars come. Whether it is Ram or Narasimha or whoever it is, the prayer always goes to Vishnu and other avatars come.
So, because the prayer is going to Vishnu and in response to that various forms are coming, that’s why the notion comes that actually Vishnu is the source of the avatars. You are understanding? The prayer is going to Vishnu and in response to that the avatars are coming. But the very word avatar means avatariti iti avatar, one who descends.
That means that it is not that when the devatas pray to Vishnu, at that time, the Krishna form is created and Krishna comes. Rather, Krishna exists in the spiritual world eternally. Ram exists in the spiritual world eternally.
Narasimha exists in the spiritual world eternally. When the prayer goes to Vishnu, who is that means God in office, and according to the particular leela to be performed, according to the particular time, one of these avatars come. So, because these forms come through Vishnu, so often they are thought of as incarnations of Vishnu.
But the point is that it is not that Vishnu is God and others are incarnations. All of them are existing eternally in the spiritual world. All of them are God.
They are God in different means, in different roles. God in office, God at home. God more intimate, God less intimate.
So, the notion that Krishna is the incarnation of Vishnu is commonplace because in the Vedas primarily it is God in office who is referred to. And when the prayer goes to God in office, then one of the other forms of God descends. So, he only gives them as much as they need to perform the incarnation, to perform the leela.
So, how can nine people have the same power, same everything and exist peacefully? So, how can many different avatars have the same power and exist peacefully? Actually, the whole point is they are not nine persons. They are one person in nine forms. Prime Minister in office and Prime Minister at home are not two different persons.
Now, the difference is that the Prime Minister at office and Prime Minister at home cannot exist at the same time because it is a limited person. God is an unlimited person. So, that means He can have many forms and He can exist simultaneously in those forms.
Advaitam acyutam anadevanantarupam. The Brahma Samhita says that He is Advaita. Advaita means He is non-dual.
He is one person. But He is anandarupam. He has many forms.
So, there is no conflict among them because it is one person manifesting in different forms. See, what is happening is, many of what you learn in school textbooks, the whole approach to religion is from a very western perspective. And the western perspective basically, there is monotheism which is what the Judaeo-Christian religion had come.
And prior to that they had polytheism which was what the Greco-Roman tradition had. So, they perceive all religions from these two perspectives. Either you are monotheistic or you are polytheistic.
But the Vedic tradition doesn’t fall in these two categories. Now, we have a conception of God that is far more sophisticated than the monotheistic understanding of God that is revealed in the Abrahamic religions. So, the Vedic understanding of God is not monotheism.
It is not polytheism. It is polymorphic monotheism. It is monotheism one God but polymorphic.
Morpha means form. Poly means many. It is one God who manifests in many forms.
So, what happens is that through the contemporary way of looking at Vedic tradition, it is very Abrahamic centred. And because of that they try to fit Vedic concepts into their conceptual categories. And that creates confusion.
So, if we get proper understanding, we will see that actually it is one God in many forms. So, it is polymorphic monotheism. It is one form that there is no question of conflict among them.
Did I answer your question? So, it is also said, what we learn in school is that everything revolves around the sun. So, why are we taught that everything revolves around the earth? Where are we taught that? We were taught that in Sunday school. No, I don’t need to argue with you on that.
Okay, fine. So, is the universe geocentric or is it heliocentric? Science says it is heliocentric. Actually, first of all, if you look at the cosmology that is talked about in the Bhagavatam, it is talked from a very different perspective.
So, the frame of reference determines the observation. I have a whole PowerPoint presentation on this. I have a full class on this.
Reconciling modern cosmology and scientific cosmology. I will just give 2-3 points over here right now. See, if you take chalk and you take coal, you grind both of them into powder.
Now, what will you have? You mix the two powders. You had black powder, white powder. You mix it together.
You will get a grey powder. But now, if you look at the grey powder under a microscope, you will not see any grey powder. You will see white granules, you will see black granules.
Now, what is it actually? Is it a grey powder or is it white granules and black granules? You don’t see it that way. So, what we see depends on our scale of observation. It depends on the way we are perceiving things.
So, the basic point is that modern science perceives cosmology in a particular way. Vedic cosmology sees it in a very different way. And because of that, so if the two of us could have an argument, if I did not have the microscope through which you are looking, I would say, this is grey powder.
You say, no, it is white granules and black granules. Actually, at one level we can say there is no similarity, but a complete difference. White granules and black granules and grey powder.
They are two very different things. But they are the same thing perceived at different scales of observation. So, similarly, what the Bhagavatam talks about is at a very different scale of observation.
And first of all, so when we try to bring the two together over here, we cannot simplistically say that it is like this or it is like that. So, if you study science deeply, in science itself, there is a big debate whether science tells us about reality or whether science gives us a model of reality. What do you mean by model? Model is like a representation, a depiction, a map.
So science, let me complete this, that originally when Newton proposed the theory of gravity and from that science went forward. Dalton proposed the atomic structure of matter. At that time, till the start of the 20th century, many scientists felt that actually science is telling us about reality.
But in the 20th century, classical physics, Newtonian physics, that was found not working for two fields. One is the motion of subatomic particles for which quantum physics was developed and for the motion of celestial objects, for that relativity physics was developed. Now relativity physics and quantum physics are violently contradictory.
Relativity requires the existence of particles. Quantum physics assumes that there are simply waves. So, there is just no way these two can be reconciled.
So how do you reconcile it? It is not reconcilable. The scientists say that quantum physics offers us one model of reality, relativity offers us another model of reality. And in different contexts, different models work.
So what reality is, science doesn’t tell us that. Einstein said that the more mathematical a theory is, the further it is away from reality. The closer a theory is to reality, the further it will be from mathematics.
Because the language of reality is not the language of mathematics alone. For example, a boy says to a girl, I love you. And she asks, okay, on a scale, tell me how much you love me.
Emotions are not mathematically measurable. There is so much in this world that is not mathematically measurable. So the point I am making is that science offers us models of reality.
And within science itself, there are two models which are not reconcilable. And scripture offers us a vision of reality from a different perspective. Sometimes there are some devotees who argue that science is wrong and scripture is right.
Actually, that is not the point over there. The point is not that one is wrong and the other is right. The point is that these are two different models of reality.
And this is perceived from a particular way, this is perceived from another way. So, and within, if we see within the Vedic tradition itself, there are different ways of looking at the universe. So there is, the Bhagavatam has a particular cosmology and there are astrological texts called Jyotish Shastras.
They have another cosmology. And so basically, just as in science there are different models of looking at the world, Bhagavatam is also offering us different models of looking at the world. So we don’t have to position science and scripture as competitors.
Science is offering us knowledge in a particular way, scripture is offering us knowledge in another way. And if somebody is putting them in competition or contradiction, then we have to understand that that is one way of looking at it. But that is not the only way of looking at it.
Science talks about the outer world and about how to manage things in the outer world. Scripture talks primarily about the inner world and how we can grow internally, how we can get higher spiritual knowledge and how we can develop love for Krishna. So, in my seminars I say that science can make things better.
Spirituality can make people better. So science can make things better. But there is spirituality which we need for making people better.
So when you understand that they have their domains, then the contradiction gets substantially reduced. Does that answer your question? So I have another question. It’s not even related to this.
And so the way we accept God is in our philosophy we say that God has to be full in all six opulences, right? Why are we limiting God’s six opulences? Because those six opulences are only like relevant in our dimension. In other dimensions such as the fourth, the sixth dimension, there can be future opulences. Like in the fourth dimension, an opulence can be time.
Like a widely accepted theory is that the fourth opulence is time. And so Krishna covers that. He says somewhere, he says that I am time.
So he covers that opulence. But what about other opulences? Right. Good question.
So when we say that Krishna has six opulences, why are we limiting him to six? God can have many more opulences at other dimensions. Yes, the Bhagavatam itself says that the number of qualities of Krishna are more than the number of atoms in the universe. They are more than the number of stars in the sky.
They are more than the number of waves in the ocean. Basically they are uncountable. So this acknowledges that God’s qualities are uncountable.
But it is a need and nature of the human mind to analyse and categorise. So at different times, different frames for analysis are used. So when we talk about six qualities, the point is that these are six prominent qualities.
And whatever qualities we may have, that these are the six prominent, when we are talking about this principle that Krishna has six qualities, six opulences, what is the point of that? Every analytical framework has a particular point to it. So the point is that we are attracted to different people in this world. And the point of analysing this is, in terms of six opulences is that whatever we are attracted to anyone in this world, that is present in a far richer quantity in Krishna.
If you are attracted to beauty, beauty is present much more in Krishna. If you are attracted to wealth, wealth is present much more in Krishna. So the point of this analysis is not to reduce God to six qualities.
The point is to redirect our heart from the attractive things of this world, from the attractive people of this world towards Krishna. So every analytical frame is like a rubber band. Now a rubber band can be used to hold the object.
But the rubber band is not the object. And if the rubber band is stretched too much, either it has to snap back or it has to break. So any analytical framework we use, that God outgrows every frame that we apply to Him.
But still, it is by applying some frames that we get some understanding of His greatness. While using those frames also, we have to remember that God is bigger than this frame. But if we don’t have any frame, then we’ll have no sense of what God’s greatness is.
So this analytical framework of six opulences is meant to help us redirect our love from the attractive things of this world to Krishna. So we’ve been having this discussion with my dad for a really long time. So Krishna says, I am time.
And then he also says that everyone has free will. I’ve given up free will to make money, so just choose one path to live in. So if I call Krishna, supposedly, just on chance.
He comes down right now and he says, I’ll give you anything you want. And I ask him, tell me I want to see my future in 25 years. And he shows me exactly what’s going to happen in 25 years.
That means that the next 25 years, everything has to happen. Each step has to take in a certain place for this one thing to happen. So that means it’s already set.
If Krishna is the past, present, and the future, and if he takes me to the future, and this is going to happen, that means everything that’s coming up to happen has to happen for this to come true. So then it’s set. Good question.
So, you know, if Krishna knows the future, then how do we really have free will? There are two different points over here. That when you talk about God’s omnipotence, he knows everything. He knows future.
Now what does it mean when he says we know future? It is not that when he knows future, it is that the future is completely preordained and he knows it. The point is, when he says he knows the future, it means that he knows that choices have consequences. And he knows which choices have which consequences.
And then the whole point of life is to make wise choices and to get good consequences. If you see the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna speaks the Gita. At the end of the Gita he tells Arjuna, now do as you will.
Do as you desire. So why does he say this? If Arjuna were like a puppet, if he had no free will, then Krishna has no need to go into the whole labour of speaking the Bhagavad Gita. So Baldevidya Bhushan is a prominent Acharya in our tradition and he says that if we were simply puppets who had no free will, then all of scripture would become useless.
Because scripture tells us do this, don’t do this. Scripture has sections which tell us. But if already it determined what I am going to do and I have no free will about it, then scripture itself becomes pointless.
And scripture is not pointless. It is a purposeful. God has given scripture and he has given scripture to guide us.
So the idea that we don’t have free will is not sustainable just by the presence of scripture. Now on the other hand scripture also says that God is omniscient. So in general, before I answer this question, I’ll tell a principle that whenever there are two statements that seem contradictory, there is a form of reasoning that is used for reconciliation that is called as Arthapatti in Sanskrit.
Arthapatti means postulation. Say, if there are two statements. Say, we have a boy, some Sanjay.
Sanjay fast. Is the Sanjay here? Okay, there is somebody else. We have Devadatta.
Now Devadatta here. So Devadatta fasts throughout the day. That’s one statement.
Devadatta’s weight is increasing. A second postulation. Now if I see that Devadatta is fasting throughout the day but his weight is also increasing.
These two don’t seem to make sense. Then we need a third postulation which will reconcile it. What is that postulation? Devadatta eats secretly at night.
So if I know that two statements are true and I know that the two statements cannot be true. Somebody is fasting, their weight can’t increase. That means something else is going on which I am not aware of.
So same way, if on one side scripture tells us we have free will. On the second side, scripture tells us that God is omniscient. God knows the future.
So then we have to understand that the knowledge of the future is not a knowledge of a controller knowing the control. Because those who know are free. So that means when we say Krishna knows the future, it means that he knows the connection of the choices and the consequences.
And he leaves it to us to make the choices. And he gives us the free will to choose. And he gives us the intelligence, the guidance by which we will choose wisely.
No, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He is giving us free will.
Free will means it is not determined. Okay, let me put it this way. If you want to argue that God knows the future, then it is the same to say that God’s knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past.
What do you mean by that? God’s knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past. Our knowledge of the past is knowledge without intervention. Knowledge without control.
For example, I know today morning I wanted to wake up at 4 o’clock, but I woke up at 4.30. I can’t change it now. That’s how it is. It’s knowledge without intervention.
It’s knowledge without control. So when you talk about Krishna’s knowledge about the future, it is knowledge without intervention. He has given us free will and he knows which free will, which will lead to what consequence.
But he doesn’t control our free will. So there is knowledge. At the same time, there is no control.
But shouldn’t time only be for us? Time was created for us. Krishna doesn’t have boundaries with time. Time is something that was made for us.
Humans created the notion of time. Humans created that for every creation that has to be created. But that doesn’t apply to Krishna.
Time doesn’t apply to Krishna at all. When we talk about time, there is our conception of time. I may say it’s 5 o’clock, it’s 6 o’clock.
Now, this is our conception. Say somebody is on moon, somebody is somewhere else. Somebody is in India, their time is different.
So one is the conception of time, the second is the concept of time. Conception is how we think of it. Concept is how it is actually.
So time is a reality independent of our conception. I may say it’s 6 o’clock here. I may say it’s 7 o’clock here.
Somebody in India may say it’s 6 o’clock in the morning there. So we may conceive of time differently. But time as an entity exists independent of our conception.
Now what does time do? Time essentially is the agency through which change happens. So the flowers that are blossoming in the morning, the flowers wither by the evening. The birds that become active start chirping in the morning.
They start becoming inactive by evening. So time is the agency through which change occurs. Now, when we talk about for Krishna, again there is the concept of God as it is revealed in the Bhakti tradition.
There is the analytical conception of God and there is the aesthetic conception of God. God as tattva and God as rasa. So analytical conception means, let’s say, if we look at a rose.
You say a boy gives a rose to a girl. And the girl says, this has an andrushyam, this has a gynushyam, this has stamen, this has scarlet. What is going on here? I gave you a rose.
So the rose can be looked at from that perspective. The analytical perspective of looking at the rose and the aesthetic perspective. So analytical perspective means we actually put aside the emotions and we observe.
That’s the biological, botanical perspective. The aesthetic perspective, oh, this is so beautiful. So now, in terms of analysis with respect to this world, initially we focus on the analytical conception of God.
That means that time is what exists in this world and God exists outside the fabric of time. So God exists. Are we to go there? There isn’t very many other devotees, so we can just move this whole thing over there.
You don’t mind asking questions there? We can go there and talk. Sure. So God, let’s complete this answer.
We’ll come there in a few minutes. So God exists from the point of analysis here in this world. God exists outside the fabric of space and time.
Just like if there is a novel, the novel has its timeline, storyline, but the author exists outside the time. So God exists outside the fabric of time. That’s from the perspective of this world.
At the same time, God also has his own self-existence. And in his self-existence, in his spiritual world, there is the conception of time which is to assist him in his leela. See, here in this world, time is the controller.
So we meet someone and then we are talking with that person. We like that person but then, you know, our time runs out. They say they have to go or we have to go.
Now when Krishna is performing Rasleela with the gopis, Krishna doesn’t say, oh, now time is over. I have to go now. Krishna can expand time.
So the point is that in this world, we are controlled by time. In the spiritual world, Krishna is not controlled by time. Krishna is the controller of time.
So time exists. Everything in the spiritual world exists to assist Krishna. Everything in the spiritual world is a servant of Krishna.
So time there also is a servant of Krishna. So that means you could say, for all practical purposes, that time as we know it doesn’t exist in the spiritual world. Time as we know it means time as a controller, time as a destroyer.
That doesn’t exist in the spiritual world because in the spiritual world, nothing is destroyed. Everything exists forever. By the same time, time as a facilitator of change for enhancing Krishna’s pastimes, that exists.
So God is, so time, is it time created for us? First of all, time is not created. Time is, it exists always and it manifests in this world. So it is, there are philosophical questions.
Does God, does God create through time? There are three possibilities. God creates through time. God is created in time and God creates time.
Actual reality is God is time. In this world, time is the manifestation of God. So God and time are not two separate entities.
Just as God is the creator, He is not created, so time is not created. But God simply manifests as time in this world. And in the spiritual world, the time that manifests is of a different nature.
It is simply to assist Krishna in His pastimes. Okay? Hare Krishna.