Spirituality in the age of science – The hard problem of consciousness

[Talk at Texas A and M University, College Station, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you today at Texas A&M University. And before I start on this topic of do we need spirituality in the age of science, I would like to know how many of you are specifically from a science background. I need to assess how much depth of science I should go into in this discussion.
Okay, specifically from a science background. Okay. And by science, you’re including engineering.
Okay, since applied science. Fine. And how many of you just are not specifically from a science background? Okay.
Okay, fine. So I’ll try to talk about science from a universal perspective without going too much into the technicalities of science. And who will be operating this? Okay, fine.
So let’s start. So the question is, do we need spirituality in the age of science? So let’s start with the person who is considered to be the greatest scientific brain of the last century. Albert Einstein.
Would anyone like to read this? Yeah, thank you. So here Einstein is acknowledging that we human beings are multifaceted. And the same human intelligence develops different fields when it explores in different directions.
When human intelligence explores the world of nature, explores and analyses and probes into the world around us, the observable, quantifiable natural world around us, that leads to the development of science. When that same human intelligence probes in the direction of creativity and imagination, then it leads to the arts. And that same intelligence, when it probes whether there is something more, something beyond what we observe, is there more to life than the world of matter that we see around us? Then it leads to the development of religion and spirituality.
During Einstein’s time, there was not such a rigid differentiation between religion and spirituality. Today, the two words have very different connotations. But his point of using the word religions was to talk about the non-material side of life.
So in a sense, if you see from this quote, he’s acknowledging that all of them have science, religion, arts, all of them have their scope, have their area. At the same time, many people feel that, oh, if you believe anything spiritual, if you practise anything spiritual, you are being unscientific. Who has seen any spiritual stuff at all? So let’s look at the scope of science to understand this point.
Yeah. So there is science and there is scientism. Scientism is actually an ideology.
So when science claims omniscience, or rather some propagandists of science, some propagators of science claim that science is omniscient. That means by science, we can acquire any and every form of knowledge. Then that science morphs into scientism.
That is scientific imperialism. Now, scientism is not only not science, it is actually unscientific. Because scientific means that there is observation, there is postulation, there is confirmation, there is experiment.
But the idea, so if the science alone can give us all knowledge, that if something is not scientifically known, it doesn’t exist. There is no scientific experiment to prove this. Science observes the world around us and tells us how this world functions.
But whether something exists beyond this world, that is something that science cannot tell. Just like if I’m inside this room, I can observe what is there inside this room. If I want, if I make a claim that nothing exists outside this room, I have to come out of that room to see that.
Without that, I cannot say it. So, science is very powerful in its scope. And scientism is not science.
Scientism is an ideology. Science is a way of acquiring knowledge. Whereas scientism is an ideology that misappropriates the prestige of science for itself and foists materialism on people in the name of science.
And this difference between science and scientism is acknowledged even by prominent scientists. Let’s look at one more Nobel laureate. So, Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger.
What does he say over here? Would anyone like to read that? Yes. So, he is not an anti-scientific person. He is a prominent scientist, a Nobel laureate.
And he is saying that the scientific picture of the real world. So, there is a picture means we take a snapshot sometimes. So, we go to a particular place, we take a snapshot.
The snapshot gives us some glimpse of that place. But the snapshot is not the full place. So, the scientific picture of the world, what happens with it? It is very deficient.
The first, what is strong about it? As far as consistency of observations, mathematical formulation of the connection between cause and effects, all that science is very strong. Puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order. So, if a fruit falls here, a fruit will fall there, fruit will fall there, that consistency is there.
But at the same time, it is ghastly silent. I will talk about this ghastly silence later once again, about all that is really dear to us. What are those things? Can you go ahead? Yes.
Anyone else would like to read? Yes. So, what does it mean? Science cannot tell us anything about physical pain and physical delight. If someone has a fracture, through scientific instruments, we can quantify how much bone is broken or how much the bone is shifted.
But how much pain a person is experiencing, cannot quantify that. Pain is an undeniable reality for us as is pleasure. But these cannot be quantified, these cannot be measured in a mathematical sense.
And so, similarly, when we talk about red and blue, nowadays many of us may use Photoshop or some other software to make some good posters. Now, with scientific technology, we can say, okay, in this poster, I’ve got 33% red, 27% blue, 16% yellow. We can tell the exact percentage.
But at the end of it, what is the experience of redness? What is the experience of blueness? Is the picture beautiful? That is something which science cannot tell us. There is a conscious person who observes and infers. So, therefore, now science sometimes pretends to answer questions in this realm.
So, I will talk about what the answers are on some occasions. So, for example, it may be said that, okay, when we see a red rose and we feel some pleasure. So, at that time, certain chemicals are secreted in our brain.
Yes, certain chemicals are secreted in our brain. But they in themselves are not the experience of pleasure. They are the correlates of that experience.
What I mean by correlates is that sometimes, you know, if you have a small cousin or someone’s child is there, relatives come and start playing with that child. So, they may tickle the belly of that child. Now, when the belly is tickled, the child may start laughing.
So, now, the child starts laughing. Is that laughter happiness? Not really, isn’t it? If the laughter coming from tickling were happiness, and all of us want to be happy. So, we could all have our own perpetual tickling machines.
And we could be lifelong happy. Does it work like that? So, the smile or the laugh, that is a correlate of something deeper. When there is happiness inside, that expresses itself as a smile and laugh.
But if somebody got a face twisting machine and twisted the face to a smile, that wouldn’t make the person happy. So, similarly, what applies to the physical expression on our face also applies to the chemical state of our brain. There is happiness is something deeper, that happiness is there, our face shifts into a has a smile on it.
And similarly, certain chemicals are secreted in the brain. But just as a smile on the face in itself is not happiness. Similarly, the chemicals in the brain alone are not happiness.
So, let’s move forward. Let’s move behind one minute. Science, it has a scope and by its scope, it focusses.
So, it’s extremely powerful within its scope. Today, we have the kind of knowledge, which is inconceivable 100 years ago, just by pressing a button, you can talk with anybody in any part of the world, you can send a message to anyone in the world. So, there’s tremendous power.
But the very thing that very thing about focus is that it also limits when you focus on one thing, and other things go out of our attention, our consciousness. So, by the scientific focus on the measurable, the quantifiable, that aspect of the world that is non measurable, non quantifiable, that has receded. Let’s go ahead.
So now, some people ask, is that scientific? Can you prove this scientifically? Whenever we talk about something spiritual. So, we have to understand that there are different kinds of evidences. Now, if somebody asks, what is the time? And we reply, okay, it’s 759.
What is the proof? How do you know it’s 759? There are ways, objective ways. We can look at your watch, my watch, somebody else’s phone, can look at a computer, search on Google, and we can confirm the time. So, there is an objective way of knowing the time.
But say, if we are in a relationship, and we want to know, does he love me? Or does she love me? We can’t have the same kind of evidence as we have for measuring time. There is evidence, but it’s of a different kind. Now, if we want to know if someone loves us, you know, you can’t put an emitter on their heart and find out how much they love me.
Love is not an emotion which can be quantified. Now, love is real. We all live to love and be loved.
But the evidence for that is of a different kind. It is not scientific evidence in the sense of being empirically measurable, or even quantifiable. And at the same time, it is real.
Go ahead. So, this all I talked about emotions that leads to the consciousness. Can someone read this? Who would like to read? Yes, please.
So, actually, the fact that we are conscious is foundational for our living and our loving. Nowadays, more and more machines are doing most of the functions that we do. So, earlier machines were doing mechanical work.
But now many machines are also doing intellectual work. And often they do intellectual work better than humans. So, machines are digital circuitry.
Machines have digital circuitry. We have neural circuitry. Now, machines, no matter how sophisticated they become, if you look at the history of computing, say, the original computers began from the principles of ABACS.
We have things moved up and down. And by that calculations are done. And no matter how sophisticated a computer is there, ultimately, what the computer does is number processing at mind bogglingly fast speeds, but it is doing number processing.
Now, number processing is 0 being shifted to 1, 1 being shifted to 0. But that does not correlate anyway with any kind of emotion. So, when a big threshold or a big achievement in artificial intelligence was considered to be achieved, when about a decade or so ago, when the computer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov. Now, after that, Kasparov was shattered.
The team that made Deep Blue was jubilant. But what was Deep Blue’s response? It had no response. It had actually played the game without even knowing that, without going through any of the emotions associated with the game.
So, there is a difference between number processing and the experience of emotions, the experience associated with that number processing or for that matter with any event. So, all of our scientific theories about brain functioning are about the way information is processed in the brain. But if a computer can do everything, many of the intellectual functions that we humans do without experiencing anything, why do we humans have to experience anything? Where does that experience come from? This is actually called in philosophical parlance as the hard problem of consciousness.
Then the basic point of how to correlate, okay, this area of the brain is connected with this, this area of the brain is connected with, that is the easy problem. But the hard problem is, why is consciousness present at all? If a computer can do the functions which humans can do, the mechanical, intellectual, mathematical functions, and it does not have consciousness, why do we have to have consciousness? Where does it come from? Please go ahead. So, now some people try to resolve it by saying, some materialists, actually consciousness, it doesn’t exist only.
Now to say that consciousness doesn’t exist requires consciousness. It’s like to say that consciousness doesn’t exist is like saying, if I come here and say, I can’t speak a single word of English, I’ve already spoken seven words. So, it’s a self-contradictory statement.
Actually, eight words are spoken. So, the point is consciousness, it is not scientifically measurable. In the sense of the component of consciousness of emotions, they are not scientifically quantifiable.
But if consciousness had not been there, there would have been no science and no scientific measurements. So, go ahead. So, even the denial of consciousness is an affirmation of consciousness.
When I say consciousness doesn’t exist, I have to have consciousness to say that consciousness doesn’t exist. So, we can’t get away from the reality of consciousness. Now, how do we know the reality? It is subjective first person reality.
It is we all experience ourselves to be conscious. And it is because we are conscious that we experience everything else. So, we have developed science.
And science, as I said, is a tool of knowledge, tool of acquiring knowledge. Scientism is the ideology that holds that science alone gives all knowledge. And these two are different.
So, I’ll explain the error in claiming that there is no consciousness, that consciousness doesn’t exist. Say, suppose, tomorrow from here I’m going to go to Denver, some programmes over there. Say, suppose I’m driving and then I take a, I have a map and the map tells me, okay, turn left.
At this juncture, go right. At this juncture, take this expressway. Now, every time it gives me a right direction.
And as it gives me a right direction, my faith in it increases. And it says, okay, when you go left, you’ll come to this, there is this building over there, there is this river over there, there will be this mountain over there. And everything that it tells is right.
And finally, it tells me, you have reached your destination. And then I go there and knock on the door. My friend opens the door and says, welcome.
And look at my map. My map doesn’t show you. Therefore, you don’t exist.
If I say that to my friend, my friend says, your brain doesn’t exist. The map is giving us a picture of reality. It’s a very powerful picture of reality.
But it is not a complete picture of reality. So, by scientific advancement, we have now acquired enormous amounts of knowledge. But if by overconfidence in the scientific way of knowing, if we start saying that because science can’t measure consciousness, so consciousness doesn’t exist.
It’s like going into a long journey to meet a friend and when you reach the friend, you say, you don’t exist. It’s ridiculous. Please go ahead.
Now, this is not just funny. It can be very grave, the consequences of the denial of consciousness. Einstein’s dilemma was that he was actually a brilliant person and he was also a conflicted person.
He made some statements which seemed to be very materialistic, godless. Other statements were spiritual, where he seemed to affirm an existence of God. So, now, if we consider science as an absolutely complete way of acquiring knowledge, then there is nothing beyond matter that exists.
And our body is made of material laws, is made of material substances, which function according to material laws. And when things function according to material laws, they don’t have any free will. If I drop this mic, I won’t drop it.
If I drop this mic, it doesn’t have any choice whether to fall or not. It is going to fall. So, if there is nothing to us apart from matter working according to natural laws, then we would have no free will.
And if we had no free will, then the implication is that no one is responsible for what they are doing. The way their brain is programmed, the way the signals go in their dendrite, the synapse, their axons, based on that, they will act in particular ways. So, the implication would be there were Nazis who killed millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
Nazis are not responsible for what they did. Because that’s how they’ve programmed. It’s profoundly disturbing.
If I just go to one of you and suddenly slap you on the face. Why did you slap me? That’s how I’m programmed. You slap me back.
That’s how I’m programmed. So, we intuitively understand that we all have free will, that we are accountable for our actions. The whole notion of responsibility is based on the assumption of the existence of free will.
And yet, the scientific picture of the world has no room for free will. Please go ahead. Now, coming to something even more practical for us, probably in youth, the statement that most of us long to hear from someone is, I love you.
Isn’t it? Now, actually, this statement, which is the most cherished aspiration of the heart, this whole statement is reduced to meaninglessness by scientism. Because what happens, I and you, the two persons, all persons are reduced to the status of biological robots. We are, this is a robo functions according to a programming, it’s digital programming.
We are biological robots. We function according to a neural programme. Now, if we open a computer, we can easily, any computer, we can have it give a message.
As soon as the computer turns on, it turns on and says, I love you. The computer gives you that message, but you don’t take that seriously. The computer doesn’t love us.
There is no consciousness to express love. It’s simply a mechanical function. And if the two people who are claiming to love you, both of them are just biological robots.
And then what is love? Within the scientific, not scientific worldview, within the scientistic worldview, scientistic is the adjective of scientism. So, within the scientistic worldview, the idea is love is nothing more than just the flow of certain chemicals in the brain. So, what happens when two people, when a mother sees her baby and feels a gush of love for the baby, nothing except some chemicals flow into the baby.
This is not only a grievously reductionistic picture of relationships and emotions, but also totally inadequate, doesn’t describe the reality at all. So, actually speaking, in the materialistic worldview, love itself becomes meaningless. And therefore, this is an incomplete picture of reality.
So, now going back, although science cannot directly talk about consciousness, it can point us towards consciousness and its source. So, Wilder Penfield is considered to be the father of neurosurgery. He’s from Canada.
Last year, I was in Toronto and I was giving a talk. So, I mentioned the same thing and the University of Toronto is speaking and there itself Wilder Penfield did research. So, one of his students was there in the audience.
So, he is a Nobel laureate, considered the father of neurosurgery. And he did almost four decades of focused research on the brain to try to find out various aspects of brain function. Now, after four decades of research, this was his conclusion.
The brain is a computer, but it is programmed by something that is outside of itself. And one particular experiment was for him conclusive. Now, we all know that there are certain areas of the brain, which are connected with certain functions in the body.
Say, for example, if a particular part of the brain is activated, then that controls the motor nervous system. So, he had a subject and he told the subject to raise his hand. The subject raised the hand, asked him, what happened? He said, I raised my hand.
And then he found, let’s say, a particular area of the brain, say the parietal lobe that was activated at that time. And he asked the subject, okay, put your hand down, put his hand down. And he asked, what happened? I put my hand down.
And that part of the brain was deactivated. Now, the brain is, brain can also be activated through external sources. So, he had something like an electrode to activate that area of the brain artificially.
As soon as he activated the area of the brain, the hand went up. He asked the subject, what happened? He said, my hand went up. Did you raise your hand? No, I didn’t.
You raised my hand. And he deactivated that part of the brain. The hand fell down.
What happened? He said, my hand fell down. Did you put your hand down? I didn’t. You did.
This is a simple experiment, but its implications are profound. To give an example, to illustrate this, say this is my computer. And suppose, attached to that there is a printer over here.
And there is a print button on my computer. Now, I press the print button and the print hand starts moving. Now, you can come and press the print button and again the print hand will start moving.
So, in the second, so the print hand of the printer is like the hand of the subject. The print button is or the print command is like the area of the brain and activating that particular area of the brain. In the second case, it was Dr. Penfield who pressed the print button, who activated the area of the brain.
In the first case, who activated it? The brain is not the originator. The brain is the medium. In the second case, the medium was Penfield.
In the first case, who was it? Dr. Penfield decided to activate different parts of the brain. While repeating this experiment, he activated many, many parts of the brain. But no matter which part of the brain was activated, that never gave the subject the feeling that I am doing that.
When different parts of the brain were activated, subject suddenly remembered something that happened in childhood, suddenly started feeling something, suddenly feel angry or irritated, different emotions, different recollections, different actions happened. But never did the activation of any part of the brain give the subject the feeling that I am the doer. So, where is the doer present? So, he after almost four decades of study on the brain, he concluded that the doer, the initiator of the action, that is not present in the brain.
The source of consciousness is extracerebral. It exists outside the brain. As I said, the brain is a computer, but it is programmed by something that is outside of itself.
So, the non-material source of consciousness is in the yoga text called as the Atma, the soul. And the soul is different from the body. So, we are not programmed machines.
Our body is programmed, but it is not just programmed, it is programmable. We can change the programming. And we are the owners of this programme, programmable machine.
We are different from this machine. And our longing for love, it is expressed through the body, but it doesn’t originate in the body. It is the soul which longs to love.
It is the soul which longs to be happy. It is the soul that is the source of consciousness. In the Bhagavad Gita, which is a prominent yoga text, an example is given about how the soul correlates with the body.
Just as if we have a source of light. In the 13th chapter, 34th text, the Bhagavad Gita said that if we have one source of illumination, say we have the sun, the sun from one place radiates light far and wide. Like that, the soul radiates consciousness in the body.
And real satisfaction, the desire for satisfaction comes from the soul. And that’s why the desire for satisfaction will be fulfilled when the soul is catered to, when the soul is nourished. By pandering to the body, yes, we do need to take care of the body because the body is our vehicle.
But taking care of the body is not going to satisfy us because we are more than the body. Yes, we at our core are spiritual beings. And science and its realm is matter.
It’s the body. And it is the world around us. So, science with its progress can make things better.
But with respect to our inner world, our emotions, our longing for love, all this, this can be fulfilled at the spiritual level. So, for example, now some people have a very short temper. Now, if somebody becomes very angry, there is no pill which is like an anger pill.
Feel angry, take this pill, all your anger goes. Now, you can take a pill, if sometimes in mental asylums, when people get angry, they are given pills. Those pills put them to sleep, put the angry person to sleep.
But when they wake up, anger is still there. So, we all have certain undesirable emotions. These emotions can’t be changed simply by mechanical means.
They are changed by the process of yoga. So, yoga has a physical aspect to it, which all of you were doing so diligently before we started this talk. But yoga also has an inner aspect, the spiritual aspect.
The spiritual aspect involves connecting our consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness. There are many ways to connect our consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness. One of the most effective ways is through spiritual sound.
So, when we chant mantras, mantra is not an ordinary sound. It is a special sound that has tremendous power in it. And the special power of the sound is that it raises, of mantras is that it raises our consciousness.
So, I’ll conclude with this example, that if we consider a two-story building and say, on the ground floor, it’s all dark. On the first floor, there’s light over there. Now, there is an elevator by which you can go from the ground floor to the first floor.
And if we just reach the first floor, we will have light. As long as we’re on the ground floor, we’ll be in darkness. So, our existence is like that, is a two-level existence.
The ground floor is like the material level of reality. And the first floor, upper floor is the spiritual level of reality. As long as our consciousness is at the material level of reality, we will be dissatisfied.
I want this, I don’t have it. I want it, but he has it. I want, but she has it.
And this dissatisfaction will not leave us no matter how much we get. Because at the materialistic level of consciousness, what we have or don’t have is not the problem. The problem is that where we are looking.
So, no matter how much we have, our vision will go towards what we don’t have. And we stay dissatisfied. So, dissatisfaction is a characteristic of the material level of consciousness.
As I said, darkness is there on the ground floor. But if we raise our consciousness to the first floor, if it becomes spiritual in our consciousness, then the soul is by nature joyful. Sat, chit, anand.
The anand, the joy is a characteristic of the soul. And as we raise ourselves to spiritual consciousness, we naturally become joyful. So, mantra is like the elevator which raises our consciousness from the ground floor to the first floor.
It enables us to experience joy at the spiritual level of consciousness. And not only does it lead us to experience inner joy, inner peace, inner contentment, but it also transforms us internally. By the chanting of mantras, we become purified.
Purified means that the emotions that make us unworthy ways, the drives and the desires that often bring the worst out of us, they get purged, they get cleansed out of our consciousness. And by the practise of yoga, we actually become better human beings. Not only do we become more satisfied internally, but we become better human beings.
The anger, if you just practise chanting of mantras, the anger will start going down, going down, going down. And we’ll become much more calmer. We’ll not be aggressive, but we’ll be assertive.
Knowing how to act in situations. So, science can make things better. Spirituality can make people better.
Science can help us to have better gadgets outside. But ultimately, our happiness depends on how we are using the things out there. And for that, we need to become better, better at managing our emotions, better at directing our thoughts, better at using the resources that we have.
And that improvement happens when we practise spirituality. When we raise our consciousness to a spiritual level, then the soul which is pure starts manifesting externally. And that’s when we become better.
So, there is a possibility to harmonise science and spirituality by recognising their domains. Science can help us to make things better in the outer world. But for making ourselves better, we need spirituality.
And when we make ourselves better, we are a part of a large world. We contribute and we help to make the world better. I’ll summarise, then you can have some questions.
So, I spoke today on the topic of do we need spirituality in the age of science? And I started by talking about how human intelligence is multifaceted. And Einstein said that the art, the religions, the arts and the sciences, they are all fruits of the same tree of the human intelligence. When directed towards the material world, it leads to science.
When directed in the world of imagination, it leads to arts. When it is directed towards the non-material realm, it leads to religion. And then I talked about how there is science and there is scientism.
Scientism is an ideology. Science is a tool of knowledge. When science, and some people claim that science is omniscient, it can know everything and whatever doesn’t exist, whatever is not known through science doesn’t exist, that is scientism.
Scientism is unscientific because there is no scientific proof that science can know everything. Just like if I am in a room, I can’t know that nothing exists outside the room unless I come out of the room. And then I talked about how Erwin Schrödinger, he recognises the power of science.
It places our experience in a consistently, magnificently consistent array. But the thing that are near and dear to us, colour, beauty, joy, pain, these cannot be scientifically quantified. So scientific picture is powerful in some ways, but it is deficient in other ways.
And then in that, the major deficiency of the scientific picture is that it leaves out consciousness entirely. The consciousness is the fundamental reality that enables us to experience all other realities. It is because we are conscious that we can do science.
But if we become overconfident of science and say because science cannot quantify consciousness, so consciousness doesn’t exist. That’s like using a map to go to meet a friend and then having so much overconfidence in the map and because the friend is not seen in the map, so we say the friend doesn’t exist. So even the denial of consciousness is an affirmation of consciousness.
Without consciousness, I cannot say that I don’t have consciousness. So now, if we go further and deny consciousness, then the result is that there is no, if we say matter is all that exists, then we have no freedom. And the consequences of that are very disturbing.
The Holocaust, who were caused it, they’re not responsible because that’s the way they were programmed. No relationship will be possible if there will be no accountability. The cherished aspiration of the human heart to love.
I love you becomes meaningless because I and you become biological robots and love becomes just a surge of some chemicals and some electrochemical signals in the brain. It is a very inadequate understanding of the human person. And a more complete understanding we can get from the yoga texts, the Bhagavad Gita and other yoga texts, which describe that the source of consciousness is non-material.
It is spiritual. It is the Atma. And the same point discussed from Dr. Penfield’s experiments, where the brain is the agent for consciousness to act.
The brain is not the origin of consciousness. The brain is like a computer, it is programmed from outside. So, we do have free will.
Our bodies are programmed machines, but we are the owners and we can reprogram this machine. And our longing for love, happiness, all this originates from the soul. And it can be lastingly fulfilled at the level of the soul.
So, if you consider two-story building, the lower story is matter, the upper story is spirit. If our consciousness is at the level of matter, no matter how much we achieve, we will still be dissatisfied. Because we keep looking for something more, something more, something more.
But if we raise our consciousness to spiritual level, then we can become satisfied. Because we realise our innate joyful nature as souls. And then the way to raise our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level is through the elevator of mantras, mantra chanting, mantra meditation.
And by mantra meditation, by spiritual yoga, when we realise and relish our own joyful nature, that purifies us of the various drives that by promising us pleasure in the outer world, bring out the worst within us. So, anger can’t be curbed by any pill. Science cannot help us to remove anger.
But spirituality can purge us of that anger. Similarly, with respect to other undesirable drives that other insiders. So, science can make things better.
Spirituality can make people better. Thank you very much. So, do any of you have any questions? Yes, please.
So, you talked about materialistic knowledge. But if we also pursue knowledge, then that also leads to dissatisfaction. You’re asking that if we pursue knowledge and want more and more knowledge, is that materialistic consciousness? Yeah.
Now, will that always lead to dissatisfaction? See, the problem is, sometimes people think that dissatisfaction is necessary for ambition. If I become satisfied, there will be no ambition in my life. It’s not necessarily like that.
There can be ambition that is motivated by dissatisfaction. And there can be ambition that is motivated by the desire for making a contribution. I am happy now.
But I have certain talents, I have certain interests, and I would like to make a contribution. My sense of self-identity and self-worth does not depend on whether the world recognises my contribution or not. I am satisfied right now, but I have been given certain gifts and I want to make a contribution.
So, it is not that to be spiritual means that we have to be materially unambitious. The problem is not either progressing in the material field, whether it in terms of money or in terms of knowledge or in terms of position. The problem is thinking that these things alone will make us happy.
So, wealth is a means for living. But in materialism, wealth becomes the purpose for living. Then that doesn’t lead to satisfaction.
Certainly, if we have an intellectual side, we naturally want to learn more, we want to explore more, research more. That’s natural, that’s desirable, as long as we don’t neglect our spiritual side. If that search for knowledge is founded in spiritual self-understanding, then there will be both satisfaction with where we are now and contribution so that we can do more.
Does it answer your question? Any other questions? Yes, please. How do we choose our mantra? How do we get on the elevator? There are many different mantras which serve different specific purposes. Just like if you go to a medicine shop, there are different medicines which can cure different diseases.
Now, in today’s world, there are no panaceas, no one medicine that can cure all diseases. But in the spiritual realm, there does exist. Among the world of mantras, there are many mantras which serve specific purposes, but there are mantras which also serve a universal purpose.
So, I talked about in this class, I focus on consciousness or our individual consciousness. Our individual consciousness is a part of the infinite consciousness. And when the individual consciousness is linked with the infinite consciousness, that leads to the highest fulfilment.
So, the mantra that invokes the infinite consciousness, the sound vibration that connects us with the infinite consciousness, that particular sound vibration, that particular mantra is considered the most powerful mantra. So, there are many mantras, those mantras which directly call out to the infinite consciousness. They are the most powerful and they are most recommended in the yoga texts for this particular age.
So, we chant the mantra Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram Ram, Hare Hare. So, in this, these are two, three primary words in it is Krishna, Ram and Hare. So, Krishna refers to the absolute truth as the all interactive one.
Ram refers to the absolute truth as the reservoir of all pleasure. And Hare refers to the feminine aspect of the absolute truth. This is a complete manifestation of the absolute truth and that is invoked.
So, for this, for this particular time in the cosmic cycle, this particular mantra is the most recommended. So, it’s like with medicines, we don’t go whenever we are, we are having some, we want to improve our health. It is not that we go around reading all the medical textbooks.
We just take a, we just take a, we just go to some person who is competent, who knows and if they prescribe a medicine, we take the medicine and we try it out, that medicine feels well and good. If it doesn’t, then we try out some other medicine. So, like that, this mantra is what is recommended by the authority to yoga texts.
So, we can try it out and if it benefits, then we can always continue it. Any other questions? Yes, please. So, how would we define the Paramatma? Paramatma, the, one of the yoga texts, Vedanta Sutra, it gives a very universal definition of the absolute truth, the Paramatma is Janmadyasyatah, that which is the source of everything.
So, we see various things exist in this world. Last year, I was doing a talk at Cambridge University and a student asked me that if you say that if God created everything, who created God? That’s a standard question that comes up naturally. Now, this question is actually an incoherent question.
Why? We can ask whether God exists or not, but asking who created God is like asking why is the circle circular. A definition of circle is that it is circular. So, when you talk about God or the absolute truth, we shouldn’t start from a depiction.
If we think of a particular form, how can this be God? First, start with definition. The definition of God as understood as absolute truth is that it is the absolute truth is the source of everything. So, from the point of view of pure logic, the source of everything cannot have a source.
Isn’t it? The source of everything had a source, then that source will be the source of everything. So, where the causal chain stops, that is where, that is the point where the causal chain stops, that is the absolute truth. Now, scientific research, especially in the field of cosmology has demonstrated quite persuasively that the universe we live in is not eternal.
It had a beginning and that beginning point, what it is, that’s a matter of speculation because at the time nor space existed. So, it’s simply a matter of speculation from where it came. But the point is, even science tells us everything came from something.
We basically, once we understand the absolute truth, the source of everything, we have basically two options. Everything came from something or everything came from nothing. Now, everything coming from nothing is extremely counterintuitive and counter-experiential.
Intuitively, it doesn’t make sense and in our experience, we don’t see anything coming from nothing. So, it’s far more logical to say that everything came from something. Now, what that something is, we cannot know directly, but we can logically infer.
Now, that something exists outside the domain of time. So, it’s like if a child reads a novel for the first time and after reading the novel, a child comes to know that there is an author. Child starts looking through the pages of the novel, where is the author, where is the author, where is the author? And the author created the storyline, the timeline, the characters, the plot, but the author exists outside the novel.
So, like that, God, the absolute truth, the Paramatma doesn’t exist in this domain, exists in another domain. And what we can know is that if the storyline of a, if the novel is well written, we can, okay, I can’t know the author directly from this novel, but what I can know is the author must be an intelligent person. If the author, the book is well written, author must know the language, English, grammar well.
We can infer certain things about the author. So, like that, we can look at the world around us and what we see is there is matter in this world and there is consciousness. There is matter, the body is material, things around us are material and we ourselves are conscious.
So, if the absolute truth is the source of everything, then in the absolute truth has to have matter and consciousness, both associated with it. And further, we all of us are finite, whereas the world is huge. So, it is not in our capacity to create or control this world.
So, therefore, the consciousness, which is the source of all this must be of far, far greater capacity. So, by this chain of inference, what we can know is that the Paramatma is, has matter as its energy, as a feature and Paramatma as consciousness. Now, to know further about this, we need to turn to the appropriate sources of knowledge.
Shastra, Yoga, Nithyana, the Vedanta Sutra says that to ultimately know about, we can infer some things about the absolute truth through reasoning. But for knowing the absolute truth in person, we need an appropriate source of knowledge. That source of knowledge is realisation.
When our consciousness rises from the material level to the spiritual level, then we realise. Otherwise, we can’t know. Now, if, say, if there are two twins in a mother’s womb and one twin starts saying, this is all that there is to the world, nothing more.
No, no, I know, I believe that there is something wonderful out there and we are going to go there. Who has seen that? It is all so dark. No, outside there is wonderful light over there.
Who has seen that? What is the proof for that? Well, in the womb, there is no proof. But outside the womb, there is a big world. Similarly, we exist right now in a womb-like condition.
Our condition is a state of, our existence is constricted existence right now. But outside this, there is free existence. And those who have realised that free existence have talked about it in and written about it in the yoga texts.
So, from their writings, from their realisations, we can get further knowledge about the absolute truth. At present, what we can understand it is that absolute truth, the Paramatma, is a conscious being, infinite conscious, far greater than us. And that matter and spirit, these are its energies.
That’s what we can infer it. To know further, we can study the yoga texts. Does that answer your question? Thank you.
Yes, please. So, talking about religion, the essence of every religion that is established in the world is spirituality. It gives us three details, but there are a lot of differences.
So, I want to know where did the differences arise from and I want to know where did they come from? Okay. So, different religions are meant for the same common spiritual goal, but there are many differences among them. So, where do these differences come from? So, you asked the question about the very point, I did not get time to speak.
So, can you just go one slide ahead? Yeah. So, here, I will try to explain the relationship with science and between science and spirituality in a different perspective. The science has these two aspects, there is theory and there is experiment.
So, in theory there is postulation, Newton’s law of fruit falling, maybe there is a law of gravity. Experiment is, we try to drop different objects and see what happens. So, similarly, in spirituality, there is an intellectual aspect and there is a propositional aspect, you could say, and then there is an experiential aspect.
So, philosophy is the propositional aspect, where, say for example, the consciousness does not come from matter, it comes from the heart, the soul, this is a philosophical proposition. And religion is not just a set of rituals, although many people may practise it like that, but religion is actually meant to be a set of practises that enable us to experience what the philosophy is talking about. So, for example, the philosophy says that we are the soul, then religion offers a set of practises by which we can realise ourselves as souls.
So, now these specific practises of religion, they are often expressed according to time, place, circumstance. So, for example, sometimes this expression according to time, place, circumstance can not only be different, they can be opposite. So, consider traffic.
The purpose of traffic rules is regulation, regulation, smooth flow of traffic on the roads. But if you consider India and America, now which side of the road we should drive on? It is opposite. The purpose is the same, but the rule is the opposite.
The same way in different religions, there are, every religion has an exoteric aspect and an esoteric aspect. Exoteric is external, esoteric is internal, confidential. So, the exoteric aspects differ.
So, for example, the idea of offering reverence to the infinite consciousness, to the supreme, that is common to all religions. Now, the Hindus may do it by folding hands, the Muslims may do it by raising their hands in namaz and the Christians may do it by offering mass. The essential expression, that is to be, the essential emotion that is expressed is the same, but the form in which it is expressed is different.
So, there are these regional variations, cultural variations, age-wise chronological variations, they can always be there in religion. So, people who obsess only on the externals, they often, that often leads to conflicts. The differences in religion are because religion, philosophy is abstract, it is intellectual, it is conceptual.
Religion is practical. So, the practical expression means it has to be done according to time, place, circumstance. There will be variation naturally.
The differences come because the religion offers practises according to time, place, circumstance. And if we understand the purpose, then we will see beyond those differences to the common essential purpose. That essential purpose is to raise human consciousness to the spiritual level.
When there is, so what happens when there is no philosophical understanding, when there is only religion, then it often leads to conflicts because you do like this, I do like this, this is different. So, the conflicts especially come when the philosophical understanding is lacking. Does it answer your question? Okay, do we have time? Yeah, please.
Okay, fine. What is your name? Yeah. Teja.
Teja. Okay, a lot of intelligent questions. I am not sorry, I appreciated you.
So, my last question is, you talked about free will. I agree that because of free will, there is accountability, there is responsibility. But what about things we are saying that can be restricted? Okay.
Yeah. So, when there are things in our life which we can’t control, how is that related with freedom? Is that fate? Yeah. Actually, in our life, there are, if we consider, in Sanskrit, I’ll use the word and I’ll explain the concept, that there is karma.
Karma is the action that we do by proper use of our free will. And then there is daiva. Daiva is destiny or what sometimes people call as fate.
And then there is kala. Kala is time. So, karma, daiva and kala, our human endeavour, destiny and time, all three have to work together for the phala.
Phala is the result. So, for example, from say an agrarian setting, if a farmer sows the seeds and ploughs the land, that is the endeavour. Rains come at the right time, right quantity, that is the destiny.
And after that, the season has to change to the harvesting season, then the crops will grow. And then the result, that is the harvest comes. So, in the successful results coming in the action, our endeavour, destiny and time, all three need to work together.
So, when we say that things are beyond our control, yes, it is always possible, it is an undeniable reality that there are things which are beyond human control. And almost everyone recognises that, acknowledges that. Sports is probably the most performance-driven activity in the popular imagination today’s world.
And yet, sports players all over the world have their own superstitions. Now, there was an Australian batsman, Mark Taylor, whenever he would go out to bat, he would first go in the pavilion s restrooms and close the lids of all the commodes. And then he would go out to play.
And if he ever got out early, he would not return to the pavilion, first he would go to the commodes, the gosh, restroom, and if any of the commode lids were open, he would go and chastise his other team members. Why did you keep that open? Because of that I got out. Now, logically speaking, there is no relation between batsmen getting out and the commode lids being open.
But the point is, sports players know that performance matters, but performance is not all that matters. There is something apart from one s performance also that shapes the result. A batsman may be batting very well, and batsman may single-handedly be leading a team to victory.
But I m talking about cricket over here, so equivalent would be probably baseball in America. A batter may be doing very well, but if say rains come at that time, storm comes at that time, we cannot do anything. So, the point is that there are things in our control, there are things beyond our control.
So, when we talk about fate or destiny, it is not that destiny controls everything. An acknowledgement of destiny, acknowledgement that destiny will also play a role in my life, that actually frees us from feeling guilty about things that are not in our control. So, it is empowering.
I did my part, let me do the rest. The Bhagavad Gita says, most well-known verses of the Gita is that you have a right to do your work, don’t be attached to the fruits. Some people say, how does this make sense? If I am studying for an exam, I want to get good grades, if I am not to be attached to the grades, what do I study for? So, actually, there is a difference between goals and results.
The Gita is not telling us, don’t set goals. Arjuna himself in the Kurukshetra war, after the Gita was spoken, he would set goals on different days, what I want to achieve in this. I talked about this, our endeavour, destiny, time, all these three lead to fruit.
So, when we set goals, that enables us to endeavour more forward. But when we are attached to the results, then we become obsessed over that which is not in our control. So, as students, how well we study for our exams is in our control.
But which company will get a job, that is not in our control. So, if we obsess over that which is not in our control, we disempower ourselves. Because we start thinking, oh, I can’t do anything about this, but I want this.
So, when Krishna talks about detached from the results, the idea is that we recognise, we acknowledge our position in the overall scheme of things. We have certain power in the overall scheme of things. But we need to focus on what we can do and acknowledge that sometimes things are beyond our control.
Now, I have given talks, I have a whole other seminar on karma. So, sometimes people say my luck is rotten, my luck is rotten. But I ask students in programmes all over the world, sometimes they say, you know, I got a very bad paper.
But then if they look at honestly, there are times when destiny gives us special favours also. We study a little bit and exactly that same thing comes in the exam. It happens.
So, Arthur Ashe, when he got cancer, one fan asked him, why did you get cancer? What did you do? So, he said that there are thousands and thousands of players who start playing tennis. Out of them, only a few hundred actually become professional, a few thousand, a few hundred actually come to the grand slams. Among them, only one wins.
And for winning, a sports player knows that it’s not just my effort. So many other things need to work out together. So, he said that when I won the grand slam, I did not ask why.
So, at that time, destiny gave a good hand. But now this has happened, now destiny is giving an unfavourable hand. So, destiny is not unfair.
Actually, destiny is also the accumulation of the action, of the results of the actions that we have done in the past. So, whatever actions we are doing now, they give us the result. If they don’t give us the result, then they get accumulated.
And if we have done good work now, eventually we will get a good result. It’s not immediately, later. So, basically, yes, there is destiny.
We have free will to change certain things, and there are certain things beyond our control. And by spiritual understanding, we can focus on that which is in our control. Actually, the next step in spiritual understanding is that that which is not in my control is not out of control.
But ultimately, there is a benevolent supervision of this world. And even if things are going wrong now, things are working out badly, ultimately, good will come out of this. That understanding can help us to face even reversals with greater maturity, with greater acceptance and greater determination.