Gita 16.09 Developing better HD streaming may be individually meaningful but consuming what is streamed is hardly ever so

Transcript

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thank you finding meaning in a search for an explanation that makes all meanings meaningless Bhagavad Gita 16.9 Bhagavad Gita 16.9 states that those who accept a materialistic world view there is no higher dimension to life than the material they end up destroying their souls and they engage in activities unbeneficial for the world now here a question often comes up especially when we try to understand how the uncritical adoption of a scientific world view as the only way to knowledge which is actually not science but is scientism how that strips life of all meaning there are many thinkers many scientists for that matter who are who are very intelligent and deeply committed to the research development work that they are doing and they find their personal quest for invention, discovery, understanding as deeply exciting fulfilling and meaningful but there is although there is no need to question that they do find fulfillment in it what is it a finding that what is the findings effect on people it’s a big difference between say inventing a polaroid camera and buying a polaroid camera there is somebody in today’s world say there is a scientist who work to make a better smart phone or a better computer or a better tablet that team I mean specific driven members of the team may find their particular work profoundly fulfilling the let’s consider the consumers now isn’t the consumers find buying a smart phone equally fulfilling not at all it’s a big difference this is there is a little bit relation oh I have got something new and oh this is such a this has this facility it did not earlier phone did not have that facility it has this feature which was not there earlier there is a little bit of pleasure at discovering some features of the phone but what after that after that it’s in a sense life back to normal because we find that there is no stability in the satisfaction that comes just having a new item so there there is a gratification of the senses at seeing and parading what one has whereas in developing that there is there is a sense of commitment that has come in there is a intellectual intellectual sense of achievement that is there that I worked so hard applied myself and learnt some and developed something just as we can very easily understand the difference between the gratification that comes from buying a smart phone and satisfaction that comes from developing a better smart phone so similarly we need to understand that actually there is a big difference between scientists at the individual level finding the scientific study very meaningful and fulfilling and the result that scientific study has on people in general on their values on their thought systems on on on their world views or to give another perhaps more provocative example you know most HD streaming facilities that are developed on the net they require a significant amount of intelligence and creativity to come up with the technology to relay those images in high quality so there is creativity and there is intelligence and there is resourcefulness that is there in developing this HD streaming but so many people most people you might even say that they use HD streaming to watch pornography now the fulfillment that comes from so developing HD making a new breakthrough in HD streaming technology that is much deeper than whatever titillation one might get by using that HD streaming technology to find a new pornographic video so the overall effect of the scientific world view on people is that it makes them more and more materialistic and it is driven by sensations that lie at the very superficial level of their being sensationalizing sensations doesn’t bring any satisfaction deeply speaking because sensations sensations lie at the surface at the surface of our being so in the scientific world view when everything is explained in terms of matter and material and material interactions then consciousness values meaning purpose all of them become epiphenomena at best or illusions at worst and they when they are no longer there in life they are superimposed in life as per one’s own conception of what one is pursuing then yes overall life is meaningless but scientists that’s what the scientific world view implies because we simply exist as blobs as parcels of protoplasm flapping around for a few moments and then everything is over but within that context of overall meaninglessness some scientists may find that their understanding how to make a better phone or understanding how to make a better HD streaming technology that gives them meaning in their lives but in general the scientific world view strips people’s life of any ultimate meaning because our life has no bigger context our life has no higher purpose our existence has no connection with no inherent connection with the with the overall purpose of existence and this is a profoundly disorienting and meaningless vision of life now within this foundation of meaninglessness we all grapple for some meaning here or there through this or that and while grappling for meaning does some people who are particularly driven by say particular technological or particular scientific ideas they may be able to do something constructive and find fulfillment therein but most common people get get caught consumed trapped by the superficial impulses to watch this to eat this to touch this to serve that and this is not only profoundly meaningless it is also alarmingly it can also be alarmingly degrading at times so most people they use HD streaming to try to find some titillation in their life by looking at whatever images they can find using the HD streaming technology so thus the end result of whatever they are doing is that they just can’t figure out any higher purpose to live for and then whichever impulses grab them they live by that so if our intelligence does not find a purpose then our impulses give us a purpose sensations live at the very surface of our being and they lie at the surface of our being lie in the sense that they mislead us give us a false picture of the purpose of our life so finding so there are often romanticized narratives described in science books about how utterly absorbed scientists were scientific researchers were to their particular scientific quests and how they work so hard to discover certain things now those are fine the scientists themselves may find their particular quests very meaningful and fulfilling but the world view that they subscribe and actually that world view is not a result of science it is a result of the indiscriminate extension of the jurisdiction of science to areas beyond the jurisdiction of science science answers gives material explanations or natural explanations for natural phenomena but when the jurisdiction of science is extended to beyond that to everything else then that is where the problem comes up and that is where we end up that is where we end up society having a having an existential crisis living in a whole sense of meaninglessness nashtatmano that sense of self is profoundly eroded by a materialistic world view so we needn’t or we shouldn’t let our ourselves be misled by the by the romanticized accounts of scientific discoveries and the commitment of the discoverers or the developers to distract us to divert us from the overall framework of meaninglessness that the scientific world view brings with it and the overall superficiality and meaninglessness that it brings to the practical activities and lives of the vast millions of people who are not developers of science but who are the consumers of the products of science and what they consume mostly use titillation and not just harmless titillation but often titillation that leads to degradation that’s why we need very much an alternative world view that that better harmonizes with the nature of reality that gives a more substantial grounding to our innate need for meaning and that helps us to move closer to harmony with the essence of our being and the essence of existence The Bhagavad Gita offers one such world view where love is described as indestructible for it stems from a core of our being which is spiritual and indestructible and is meant to be directed towards the whole who too is not just spiritual and indestructible but who is all attractive being the worthy receiver of love and being the supreme reciprocator of such love