Gita 15.10 The scientific torchlight shows matter clearly consciousness hazily and God not at all

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you Krishna is saying that you can see spiritual reality in the eyes of knowledge in today’s world the scientific way of knowing has a has a place of pride it is the privileged way of knowing many times when anything spiritual is talked about the first question that comes up is is it scientific now we can consider science to be like a flashlight but it is a it is a peculiar kind of flashlight suppose we have a flashlight that when we look down with it when we point it downwards it shows the path ahead of us very clearly and where there was darkness we are able to see enormously well but when we point it horizontally towards other people on the path it becomes blurred and say we point it upwards and then it just goes blank it just shuts down normally when we have a flashlight we would think that the direction it is pointing wouldn’t matter wherever it is pointed it will show equal amount of light similarly we think that the scientific way of knowing is extremely powerful and whichever direction we point it it will give us knowledge with the same level of power but things don’t work like that because we can’t control things we can’t control all things equally when we say we point the flashlight down that means if we use science to study material reality matter and material reality then we get powerful understanding in its world view we can find out laws we can come up with theories we can come up with equations of precise mathematical functionality and the result of that in terms of technology has transformed the world around us today so when it comes to study of matter and material things science is extremely powerful and it is powerful because to a significant extent matter is controllable the centre the centre point of the scientific method is the controlled experiment and the controlled experiment means that that which is to be experimented with that which is to be studied we observe it with careful criticality and by observing it thus we try to figure out how it will function in various conditions but those conditions are controlled that particular object is controlled and for it to be controlled it should be controllable so we can our fruit fell down and Newton observed it we can make other objects fall down we can prevent other influences from interfering with the fall of that object and thus we can subject matter to certain conditions and we can prevent other extenuating factors extraneous factors from interfering with that object while we are subjecting it to particular conditions that is the essence of the controlled experiment that means the object is controlled and its environment is controlled so now by such controlled experiments science can come up with patterns and if certain patterns are repeated then those patterns comprise the body of a theory and then further experiments are repeated and again they are confirmed same results will come out and the pattern is confirmed as a theory that has more or less been proven now by this knowledge based on philosophical on controlled experiments a tremendous amount of mathematical expression of natural behavior of the behavior of nature or material objects has been done and it has led to the development of substantial amount of technology at the same time when we apply this study to human beings when human beings are not controllable in the same way as material objects are controllable as we may say just as an object may put in a controlled environment somebody might say put a put a person in a particular controlled environment but then that is simply the physical aspect of the person is controlled but what about their emotions, their consciousness there is no linear law bound behavior for how people will respond emotionally and behaviorally in terms of whatever situation they are put in being subjected to a controlled experiment being put in a controlled environment may make some people feel worried may make others feel angry may make some others feel excited may make some others feel inquisitive we can’t control those feelings which they go through when those emotions we can’t say what emotions people will have we can’t even say necessarily how their behavior will be there is no mathematical law which can explain or predict or even describe people’s behavior why why if some particular plane crashes then scientists can find out ok this went wrong, that went wrong they can do scientific analysis to find a precise cause but why say some marriages work and some marriages don’t work why some children do very well some children grow up to become in the same family, why some children grow up to be responsible mature adults and why some stay wastrels why some become wastrels there is again no precise mathematical explanation for this so people do have a side that is our bodies we could say to a large extent they are bound by laws so we are put in a cold environment our body temperature will go down we will start feeling a sensation of cold but what that cold environment will trigger thoughts and emotions within us that will vary from person to person to a significant degree that’s why science is like a torch which when pointed towards people it starts showing a bloody picture and when we move the scientific mirror, scientific flashlight upwards then actually we are not able to see anything at all because God or if there are any other higher beings in existence we can’t make them dance to our tunes we can’t control them we can’t force God we can’t even invoke God’s presence or make him subjected to a control experiment that’s why we can’t get we can’t get knowledge about persons in a personal sense persons in a biological sense we can get knowledge about their medical parameters but if somebody wants to make a marital match and see if they are compatible with someone we can’t consider their x-ray or their medical health report to be an adequate parameter for deciding whether to form a relationship with them or not we can’t have a lavometer tell us whether they really love us or not we can’t we can get some information about them but the flashlight of science becomes blurred when it is directed towards people and it becomes totally, it just shuts down when it is directed towards God because science can make no statements about things which it cannot subject to control experiments now the existence or non-existence of God these are questions of human interest and scientists may make statements about these subjects but then it has to be clearly understood that the scientists are making the statements in their capacity as human beings they are not making those statements on the basis of their scientific knowledge for science is not capable of giving knowledge about things which it cannot control and not just God but even God’s even actions which are not even things which are not subjected to subjectable to control experiments even those, science cannot give us knowledge for example, origin where is our origin how did the universe come about so basically there are three fundamental questions how did the universe come about how did life come about how did human being come about now there are some scientific theories which claim to explain these things but they are not the result of the theoretical propositions themselves not the result of precise controlled experiments, they are more or less the results of a substantial amount of speculation based on certain experiments that have been conducted and the experiments are about a very fragmental portion of the totality of the reality that is involved in the question of origins so now we need another kind of knowledge we need to see with the eyes of scripture to understand what is what when we start looking at higher spiritual realities and to the extent we see with the eyes of philosophical knowledge from scripture internalized by contemplation, by realization then that is a different way of seeing which will enable us to see and realize and the spiritual truth is just the Atma so science is a flashlight that shows clearly downwards hazily horizontally and nothing vertically upwards