Science, Spirituality & Self-improvement

[Talk at Yale Medical College, Connecticut, USA]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank all of you for coming here today afternoon and I will be speaking on the topic today of, as I mentioned, science, spirituality and self-improvement. So, I will phase this talk in three parts. What is science understanding of the self? How does that relate to self-improvement? What is spirituality understanding of the learning of the self? How does that relate to self-improvement? And finally, how these two understandings can be integrated together? So, now, if to understand this, let us start with the history of science a little bit.
Francis Bacon was one of the pioneers of the empirical method in science and he said that knowledge is power. Now, this can be seen as a general statement, yes, by knowledge we get power. But he also had a specific implication in mind.
His idea was that through scientific knowledge, especially as applied in technology, we will be able to control nature and thus we will acquire power. And in order to acquire power in this way, science in study adopted a methodology that can be called as methodological naturalism. That means science looked for natural explanations for natural phenomena.
Last year when I was invited to Cambridge University for giving a talk on science and spirituality, at that time, we passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling, the apple falling. And now, when Newton saw the fruit falling, he asked the question, what made this fruit fall? And if we look at Newton’s biography, he himself believed in God. But at that time, he was not looking for God as an explanation.
What made the fruit fall? God caused the fruit to fall. He wanted to know a material mechanism that made the fruit fall. And he came up with the idea of gravity to explain that.
So, the idea in science was that if we bring in any non-material explanations, then we can’t control them. We can’t subject them to any experiments, we can’t subject them to any control, we can’t adapt them or change them. So, that aspect of knowledge will not give us power.
That’s why science in the matter of methodology focused on natural explanations for natural phenomena. And there was a significant advancement in knowledge that happened because of this. Today, we see technology has turned the face of the world.
But at the same time, this methodology has its consequences. That from science emerged scientism. Scientism is a portmanteau of science and imperialism.
When science started claiming that it has all knowledge about everything, then that was scientific imperialism. Now, interestingly, if I say that science can provide all knowledge about everything, this is not a scientific statement. Why not? Because how can the scientific experiment will prove that science can provide all knowledge about everything? Just recently, in Ohio State University, I gave a talk on dealing with fear.
So, everybody has different kinds of fears. One of the distinctly modern fears is the fear of rejection. We try to form a relationship with someone and that person rejects us or that person lets us down, that person betrays us.
Now, with all our scientific advancement, can we develop something like a love-o-metre? We have a thermometer, we have a barometer. If we want to develop a relationship with someone, we place that metre on their heart. Do you really love me? And the metre says, yes.
Now, prove false. And love is a fundamental reality based on which we shape our lives. We know love is for real.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that love is scientifically negative. So, the point of this is not to criticise science. I’ll talk about this later.
The point of this is to recognise that when we have a particular focus, that focus shows us particular things, but it also does not show us particular things. So, as an example, if I have lived throughout my life inside this room, and if I’ve never gone outside this room, and then I claim nothing exists outside this room, then I’ve never gone there. How can I say that? If I lost a key somewhere, and I decided I’m going to look for the key inside this room only, well, if the key exists outside, I won’t find it.
So, what happens when science looks for natural explanations for natural phenomena, we get tremendous understanding of certain aspects of reality. But some aspects get left out. So, there’s metaphorical naturalism, which is a certain methodological naturalism is a method that is adopted.
But from there emerge metaphysical naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism holds that there is nothing existing except matter. So, matter and material things are the only reality.
And this understanding is actually an operational assumption. Science starts by assuming that, okay, we are going to look for non-material phenomena. And if at the end, therefore, we conclude there are no non-material phenomena.
Assumption cannot be a conclusion. So, another example to illustrate this is, say, someone goes for fishing. And while going for fishing, they take a fishing net, which has holes, which are about two inches.
And they catch big fish. But if there are fish smaller than two inches, the fish is one inch. And no matter how long they cast the net, they will not be able to catch those fish.
Because the tool has a particular focus. And along with the focus comes a particular limitation. So, science focusses on looking for material explanations for material phenomena.
And the result of that is that non-material explanations or non-material factors are not considered. And when I’m using the word material, I’m not using it in a technical sense, I’m using it in a generic sense. It is measurable in terms of empirical methods.
So, now is real. But how can we measure? So, what happens with respect to the scientific methodology? As a method, it is valuable. But from methodological, when it becomes metaphysical, when someone starts claiming that there is no reality beyond science can find, then that is not a scientific statement.
That is an ideological statement. And that ideological statement does not have any scientific basis. Now, I’ll come gradually.
This is the background. I’ll come to the point of self-improvement and science vision of the self. Now, this is not just what I’m saying.
There are prominent scientists also who have pointed this out. So, here we have Nobel laureate, physicist Arvind Shwarankar. He says, I’m very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very, very sheet.
It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order. But it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. So, what is it silent about? Go ahead.
It cannot tell us a world about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight. It knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains.
But the answers are often, very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. Shwarankar is no enemy of science. He is a pioneer of science.
But as a pioneer, he recognises the strength of the scientific method. He also recognises the limitations of science. Now, what does it mean by science cannot tell us about physical pain and physical delight.
We have medical science which substantially works in curing diseases, treating us for pain. Yes, it works, definitely. At the same time, again, going back to the point of empirical measurement, with all our scientific advancement, we can’t have a painometer.
If somebody’s hand is fractured, how much pain are you in? I have a scale of pain. Now, we can have some empirical scale of pain, which might look at, okay, how much is the displacement of the bone? How much is the wear and tear of the tissue? But in terms of the experience of the person, that’s something which can’t be measured. The physical pain, physical delight, this is something which is experiential, but it is not measurable.
So, this is the central part of our reality. So, red and blue means that suppose we are using a software like Photoshop to design some image. With our, with the use of software, we can come to know precisely, okay, this particular image has 33% red, 22% blue, 17% yellow, 8% black, whatever.
But is it beautiful? Does it look good? That is something which is important criterion and the whole purpose of cover design is that it should look aesthetically pleasing. But that is an experience. So, with the best software, we can get the composition, we can get the colour composition, but we cannot get, we cannot identify the effect of the composition.
So, it’s an experience. So, red as a colour, and the redness can be measured, but the effect of the redness as in terms of the aesthetic effect, that’s something which is experienced. It is real, but it is not something which science can explain.
So, we wonder, is all this just abstract matters? Okay, as far as our technology is concerned, there’s so much we can do, so much we are doing. So, even if there’s other things which can’t be measured by science, why make an issue about it? Let’s move forward. So, Martin Luther King Jr. said that our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles. So, guided missiles refers to the scientific knowledge by which we have got phenomenal control over the outer world. The kind of control that we today have, it would have been difficult for people to even imagine 50 years ago.
So, just by pressing a few buttons, you can talk with anybody in any part of the world. We can summon information from any part of the world. So, this is astonishing level of control.
This is external control. So, we have guided missiles, but with respect to the inner world, we have misguided people. What has happened is, the more our focus has been on the outer world and using scientific knowledge to control the outer world, the inner world and the methods for controlling the inner world have been neglected.
Now, this has several sociological as well as individual consequences. So, let’s, Einstein was one of the greatest scientists of the last century. And he, there are a few people who are more, greater champions of science than me.
But even he recognised the limitation of the scientistic method, not scientific. Science, the adjective is scientific. Scientism, the adjective is scientistic.
So, a scientistic method holds that science alone can explain everything and matter is the only reality. So, if matter is the only reality, then matter simply acts according to the laws of nature. When matter acts according to the laws of nature, it has no such thing as free will.
So, if I take the spoon and I drop it alone, but if I drop it, if I drop it, it will just fall. It has no free will whether to fall or not. It’s a lighter way, he said.
Einstein said that gravity explains the falling of objects. But gravitation cannot be held responsible for people’s falling in love. So, there is an aspect of reality and aspect of behaviour which is involving free will.
So, if we are simply just creatures of matter and matter acts according to certain laws, then we are nothing but biological robots. We are just chemical robots. And then the robots have no free will.
And the implication of this would be Hitler’s persecution of the Jews caused Einstein to leave Germany and seek refuge here in America. And almost 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. 6 million other people, gipsies and others also.
So, if we took Scientism to its conclusion, what it means is that the Nazis can’t be held responsible. Nor can Hitler be held responsible. Because they were just programmed that way.
Their brains were programmed that way. And that’s why they acted that way. So, now, all systems of justice, all systems of accountability, all relationships are based on the understanding that we are responsible.
Responsible means responsible. We are able to choose our response. If I come to one of you right now and I slap you in the face.
Why did you slap me, you’ll ask. My brain programme told me to slap you. You slap me back.
My brain programme told me to slap you. Only when we behave, when we act, we understand implicitly that we have free will. And that’s how we are responsible for our actions.
So, free will is foundational for justice, foundational for accountability, foundational for relationships. And if we take the scientific world view to the conclusion, then there is no such thing as free will. Not the scientific world view, the scientistic world view.
Science when it is extrapolated beyond its domain, then it leads to this problem. So, similarly, now many people live and dream they want to hear somebody say, I love you. Especially in youth, that’s what people dream of.
But if we again take the scientistic method, what does it imply? I and you are simply chemical robots. And love is just a surge of chemicals in the cranial cavity. So, when a mother sees her baby, what is it that is happening? There’s no love.
There’s just a surge of chemicals in her brain. This is a disturbingly reductionistic view of life. Yes, there is a surge of chemicals in the brain, but that alone is not love.
There’s something more going on. So, now, Robin Williams is a prominent comedian. And a few years ago, he committed suicide.
Now, here, many people have committed suicide, but his suicide was disturbing, because comedians are merely considered to be happy people. They make everyone else happy, even in jokes. So, why was he so depressed that he had to commit suicide? Here, the point which I’m making is about correlation and causation.
Humour is a skill. And humour can lead to happiness. But humour alone is not happiness.
To understand this, let’s consider a simple example of, say, tickling. Sometimes, if some relatives come to visit a family and there’s a small child in the family, just to have a little, say, fun, the relatives just tickle the belly of the child. When they start tickling, the child may start laughing.
Now, when the child starts laughing, is that laughter happiness? Is the laughter induced by tickling, is that happiness? Yeah. Yes or no? Yes? No. No.
Okay. Yes. Generally, laughter can be happiness.
But the laughter induced by tickling is not really happiness. It’s just a biological reaction to a biological stimuli. If the laughter induced by tickling were happiness, then we could all just reduce our quest for happiness to the quest for a perpetual tickling machine.
Whenever we want to be happy, we have to just have a tickling machine in the class. And we’ll be happy. Does it work like that? So, happiness is something good.
Normally, whenever there is happiness internally, that is expressed as laughter. But just the laughter which is induced because of the physical stimulus of tickling is not happiness. So, the point I’m making over here is that actually, if you study brain science, we do find that there’s a tremendous amount of connection between brain stimuli and emotions.
So, when we are happy, a particular part of the particular set of chemicals will get to it. When they’re depressed, a particular set of chemicals will get to it. Or their composition may go up or go down.
I’m using layman’s language over here. But the important point is, that those chemicals alone, their secretion or their decrease, that alone does not comprise the emotion. There is the emotion of happiness and that expresses itself at a physical level through laughter.
And similarly, there’s a feeling of happiness that expresses itself at the neurochemical level through the secretion of certain chemicals. So, just as if somebody is glum and depressed, they can go get a face twisting machine and twist their face with their smile. Now, if they’re always glum, smiling might make them feel a little better.
But just twisting the face into a smile doesn’t make one happy. Similarly, just altering the brain composition, that alone does not comprise happiness. So, the experience of emotions, the experience of consciousness is a physical reality.
And technology has advanced tremendously in terms of giving us exposure to external stimuli. So, those external stimuli may entertain us, they may titillate us, they may dazzle us, but through it all, all that they’re doing is, they’re tickling us. They’re tickling us, tickling.
But the tickling is not happiness. Happiness is something deeper. And that is what we need to experience.
So, when we talk about self-improvement, we’re talking about the self and how it can improve. So, if the self is simply a product of matter, then the self has no free will. And there’s no free will that it will simply respond to whatever stimulus comes to it.
There’s no chance of improvement. Because it’s just matter obeying the laws of nature. Therefore, this is a, and we see this at a sociological level.
WHO statistics say that there are 1 million people who commit suicide every day. And a figure of 1 million means that it’s one suicide every 40 seconds. So, since we started this talk, almost 50 people have committed suicide already.
And this number is actually more than the number of people who are killed in wars, in terrorist attacks, and all forms of violence. And it’s more than the number of people who are killed by others. It’s the number of people who are killing themselves.
What has gone wrong? The war has gone wrong. Science and technology have progressed so much. We have so much more comforts in life.
And why is it that people are so disoriented, so depressed, that they are killing themselves? We do not have any record in the history of so many people committing suicide in the past. So now, WHO calls this a tragic social health problem. So what we speak of self-improvement, we are having society, individual society going in the opposite direction, in the direction of self-destruction.
So if we move from the scientific conception to the scientistic conception, and apply that to the self, then at an experiential level, our reality of freedom is denied. And at a practical level, we see that despite the advancement of science, I am not saying that scientific advancement is causing or not causing, that’s not the point. I am saying that despite the advancement of science, there is something wrong because of which people are being depressed, people are succumbing to some destructive impulses.
And they are destroying themselves. So let’s now look at spirituality, conception of the self. There is definitely programming within us, but we ourselves are not programmed machines.
The yoga tradition, which is described in the Bhagavad Gita, is a three-level model of the self. The three-level model of the self is the body, the mind and the soul. All three together comprise the self.
And in this three-level model of the self, the body can be compared to a hardware, the mind to the software, and the soul to the user. So among these three, the body and the mind, they are material. And they are programmed.
They are the machine that we use for functioning in the world. And they are programmed in particular ways, but they are also reprogrammed. The programming can be changed.
But we ourselves are different from this way. We ourselves are conscious beings who can use the body-mind mechanism in particular ways. And thus, if we consider the self to be separate from matter, then that actually opens up the possibility for self-improvement.
Because if we are simply the products of matter, then we simply act according to the laws of nature, and then there is no scope for self-improvement. But we understand that the aspect of our being is separate from matter. And that can reprogram the way we function.
And that is what the scope for self-improvement is provided for philosophically. All right. So how does this work out practically? Let us look at this.
Now all of we humans have four distinctive endowments, which are not present in machines. So to some extent, we can have a very complicated digital circuit in a computer, and we can have a very complicated neural circuit in the human brain. And in some ways, the digital circuits of computers can actually supersede the information processing capacities of the neural circuits in our brains.
Nowadays, people, we are having what is called intelligent systems, artificial intelligence, where we can have expert systems which can assist us in the information gathering. So we can just search something on Google, and we get information. We can ask questions, we can get answers.
One of the landmark events in the development of artificial intelligence was when the computer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov, who was then the reigning chess champion in the world. At that time, now, this was several years ago, over a decade ago, more than that. But the point is that at that time, Kasparov was shocked.
There were pictures in newspapers of him holding his head. And the makers of Deep Blue were hated. Yes, the computer defeated the world champion.
But what was Deep Blue’s reaction? Deep Blue had no reaction. Deep Blue actually didn’t even have the experience of playing the computer. All that Deep Blue had done was it had simply processed information.
And let me think that processing information is something special. All that it had done was just shift numbers. All digital information processing simply involves changing, going through patterns of zeros and ones and changing them.
That’s all that happens. In a more sophisticated computer, all that happens is, there are circuits, zeros and ones, and they are alternated in different ways. So now, if we just say 01010101001.
Now, just by increasing the speed of 01010101, suddenly love or joy or excitement is all going to converge over there. The speed is irrelevant, because that is simply information processing. So, sometimes we say, oh, in future machines will become intelligent.
Yes, machines will become capable of doing better than humans. A prominent advocate of machine engineering said that. In future, the robots will become so advanced, that we humans will be fortunate if they keep us alive as pets.
They will take over the world. That’s an interesting fantasy. But the point here is that, actually, these machines will be able to process information better than us.
But they don’t experience anything. So, we could, rather than asking, can machines become intelligent? Or can machines become more intelligent than humans? We could turn the question around and ask, if machines can process information faster than humans, without experiencing emotions, then why do we human beings experience emotions at all? If information processing is simply the barometer of intelligence, and machines can do it without experiencing any emotions, so why do we need to experience emotions? So, the experience of emotions is irreducibly a conscious phenomenon. And this conscious phenomenon is meant for a distinct purpose.
We humans need to process information. But processing information is not the purpose of our life. We have a higher purpose.
Even the scientists who make the best computers for processing information, they have also a goal, which is happiness. They also want to be happy. They want a relation of an achievement.
And where does this experience come from? This experience of happiness, that doesn’t come simply by number crunching. It comes from something else. So, we have consciousness as a distinctive faculty.
And a consciousness as a distinctive faculty that makes us capable of certain things which a computer is not capable of. No matter how sophisticated it is. And therein lies the capacity for self-improvement.
When we are talking about self-improvement, it is not simply better information processing. We are talking about ethical improvement. We are talking about the development of character.
We are talking about becoming better human beings. So, we have these four endowments. Self-awareness, imagination, conscience and willpower.
And these differentiate us from the most sophisticated of machines. I’ll explain to you on this. And this will help us to understand the spiritualities, understanding of the self and the potential for self-improvement.
Go ahead. So, self-awareness means that we can be aware of our feelings. We can be aware of our thoughts.
We can be aware of our emotions. I am aware. All of us, we have consciousness and we are aware.
Say for example, you are hearing what I am saying. I’ll explain how you are hearing what I am saying. We are aware.
But we can turn inwards and we become aware of our thoughts. So, for example, I may be shocked and pulled. And I tend to become angry.
But when I tend to become angry, instead of simply acting on my anger, I think about it. Oh, I am becoming angry. I am becoming angry.
So, is this worth getting angry about? No, this is not worth getting angry about. But the fact is that we can become aware of our emotions. And this awareness of our thoughts, awareness of our emotions is what enables us to evaluate.
So, without this self-awareness, we just end up doing things without even recognising that we are acting in particular ways. So, to the extent we become self-aware, to that extent we can recognise whether the pattern in which I am thinking or acting, it is desirable or it needs to be reformed. Go ahead.
Second is, so I am like this. This is what I can become aware of. But I want to become like that.
I can become like that. So, I am a shocked and pulled person. Whenever somebody provokes me, I just explore it.
You know, I have a friend who says, you know, I can become like that. I want to become like that. This is where we can use our imagination in a creative way.
This capacity to visualise a reality that does not exist, that is something which again requires consciousness. It is not just information processing. It is an act of creative visualisation.
So, to be like this, I want to become like that. So, basically, when I take the metaphor of a flight, if a plane is moving in a particular direction, and then because of the pressure of the wind, because of the atmospheric condition, the plane starts moving off in another direction. Oh, I meant to go here, I am going in this direction.
So, whenever any creation is made, whenever I say, now a new iPhone is designed, a big building is made, a piece of art is made, at first it is conceptualised. So, this is how you would like it to be. And then it manifests in a physical way.
A Ghar is, go ahead, it is conscience. The conscience means the inner awareness that there is something wrong in the way it is made. I am relapsing back to my old balance.
So, as soon as I become, I resolve I don’t want to become angry, but I have become angry. With all our scientific advancement, as far as inner world is concerned, we are still broken in the dark. When people become angry, can we, why can’t we have some anger pill? Feeling angry? Just take this pill.
And cool down. Now, when people are angry, especially in mental health care facilities, when they get angry, then they are given pills. But those pills don’t stop their anger.
Those pills will put them to sleep. I have a friend who works in a mental health care facility and he told me that he was talking with a patient and one moment the patient was talking rationally and the next moment he got so angry he started throwing things here, knocking things down, blowing things up and they had to get around 10 security guards to control him. And they did it within 2-3 minutes.
But in those 2-3 minutes, in that medical facility, he destroyed $10,000 worth of equipment. So, what happens over here is that actually, when people are mentally unbalanced, the sense of consciousness is lost. We are not conscious.
So, here again, this is a human being. I am like this. I won’t be like that.
But again, I am within myself. I don’t want to be like this. So, in the inner world, what is happening, we can answer that with the endometric consciousness.
Consciousness is aware. We have gone off track. So, this is our inner compass.
Then there is our determination. Determination means that I have certain emotions that I have to deal with. But I have also an intention.
So, I won’t act according to the circumstantial emotion. I will act according to my intention. I am not simply my feelings.
I am not the anger. I am the fear of my feelings. I am separate from those feelings.
I am distinct. This understanding again helps us to respond. It’s like, we may go to a room and we find that somebody is very disagreeable.
That person likes to provoke us, make us angry. And after making us angry, that person just enjoys in provoking us to a fight. Now, that person is going to be like that.
But we can decide, I am not going to pay attention to this person. I am not going to talk to this person. I will go somewhere else and talk to him.
That person is present in the room. But if we don’t pay much attention to that person, that person can’t affect us much. Similarly, in our inner world, certain stimuli may come.
Certain emotions may come up. But it’s only when we pay attention to them that they gain control over us. If we neglect them, they will be there for some time and then they will go away.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that don’t resent your emotions. But don’t identify with your emotions also. प्रकार्शं च प्रवित्तिंच बोहमेव च पाण्डवः प्रवेश्टिसं प्रवित्तानि अनिवृत्तानि काम्षिति उदासी उदासी उदेयो न विचायते भुणापर्थंति प्रेव योपतिष्ठितिने इन्दते So he says that sometimes we feel illuminated, sometimes we feel fresh, clear.
Sometimes we feel hyperactive and something else. Sometimes we feel I am bored. All these different emotions will come.
So Krishna says don’t identify. They will come, they will go. These three sets of emotions they are put in a way some people make things happen, some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened.
So there are different emotions which come within us if we just let them control us then we get overwhelmed. But if we can have a sense of perspective this is coming, this will be there sometime. So it’s a programming that is there within me by which certain things are prompted.
But you don’t have to necessarily act in that way. I don’t have to necessarily act on them. If I don’t act on them, they won’t control me.
Then we can distance ourselves from our programme. There is programming within us but we are not our programme. We are separate from the programme.
And these four endowments which I talked about self-awareness, creative imagination, conscience and determination these are tools by which we can change our programme. We can become aware of our programming and then we can change that programme. And that way we can change our inner world.
So science offers us tremendous power in terms of controlling the outer world. But we also need power for controlling the inner world. And this was the understanding of knowledge in the pre-scientific age.
Socrates defined knowledge as virtue. If somebody has knowledge how do we define it? How do we know that somebody has knowledge? It’s not just their information processing ability but it is their emotion processing ability. It is their impulse processing ability.
It is their capacity to act virtuously. The Bhagavad Gita also defines knowledge in similar terms. It states, it gives 20 attributes of knowledge in 13.8 to 12.
And then it says that knowledge is defined in terms of virtues. In terms of how we act. How we respond to situations.
Whether it is simply by our impulses or by our principles. Spiritual knowledge is what gives us control over our inner world. So science and spirituality can be complemented.
If you understand that science analyses the physical world and it gives us technology for understanding and controlling the outer world. But that alone is not enough. We need to control our inner world also.
Without controlling the inner world even if we get the best control over the outer world we will only create misery for ourselves and misery for others. So this inner control is what spiritual wisdom offers. If we consider the Bhagavad Gita a few books can have as dramatic a setting as the Bhagavad Gita has.
Here the great archer Arjuna he is one of the greatest archers of his times. He is about to fight the biggest war of his life. And when he is about to fight the biggest war he puts his life in danger.
I can’t help it. योध्सेति गोविन्दम् तुक्त्वातुश्वीन्बभुवः योध्सेति गोविन्दम् आई इस्वित्चिसशरं चापं चोक्षंदीद्नमारिस्यः Arjuna had taken up his bow and ready to fight. He put down his bow and started fighting.
इस्वित्चिसशरं चापं चोक्षंदीद्नमारिस्यः So what happened? One of the greatest warriors of his time was defeated even before a single arrow was shot. How was he defeated? By the attack of the emotions. He had tremendous control over the arrows that he could shoot.
But there was an attack, not from the enemies outside but there was an attack from the enemies inside. Univocal emotions attacked him. And he was torn to pieces.
And by the end of the Bhagavad Gita it is described, what happened to Arjuna? एत्रपार्थो ननुर्थरा Arjuna had taken up his bow and ready to fight. So Arjuna’s bow represents our determination. When we face perplexities in life, when we face negative situations in our life, we become disheartened.
And the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita just as it inspired Arjuna to pick up his bow and become ready to fight, the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita can also help us gain control over our inner world. So when a war is to be fought, the knowledge of archery, expert archery skills are important. But even in a war, inner control is important.
And that inner control was what was provided to Arjuna by the Bhagavad Gita. When Arjuna won the war, eventually, it was by both the inner control that was provided by the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita and by the outer control that was provided by the knowledge of archery that he had mastered. Similarly, when we live in today’s world, through technology, we have a lot of outer control.
Then we also need inner control. So spirituality can provide us inner control, it can also provide us outer control. And thus there can be balance of both.
So, spirituality can be considered a higher dimensional science. Science itself has two branches. There is theory and experiment.
The theory proposes, when you saw the fruit falling, it proposes, it is a law of the earth. In the experiments we performed, let us see, there is another fruit fall down, to other objects fall down, they fall in other places and other times. In the experiment, he verified the theory.
Similarly, spirituality has these two aspects, there is philosophy and there is religion. So philosophy offers us postulates about reality. For example, the Bhagavad Gita offers the philosophical proposition that we are not just physical religions.
We are spiritual beings who possess physical bodies. And this is a philosophical fact. Then there is religion.
Religion is not simply a set of rituals it is actually meant to be a set of practises that help us to examine and experience what is taught in philosophy. This integrated approach to spirituality as a combination of philosophy and religion is pointed to in the Bhagavad Gita 9.2. Krishna says, Raj Vidya Raj Gurnam, Pavitra Vidham Uttamam Prateksha Vardhamam Dharinam, Sushukham Kartam Avinam. So he says, that Raj Vidya Raj Gurnam, this is the topmost knowledge.
Why the topmost? Secret knowledge. Why? Because being the subject, it is not commonly talked about. Subject of the inner world.
Subject of the spiritual reality. And Prateksha Vardhamam Dharinam. Prateksha Vardhamam Dharinam means, it can be experienced directly.
Through practise we can experience it ourselves. And what is the experience? Sushukham Kartam Avinam. The experience is of joyfulness.
We can experience joy. The spiritual knowledge, when it is applied in our life, we can experience joy. He says, Arjuna, he was distressed at the start of the Gita, but by hearing the Gita, by resolving to apply the principles of the Gita, he experienced relief.
He experienced restoration of his composure. He experienced determination. Similarly, this knowledge, he said, it can transform us entirely.
Now sometimes, in today’s world, there is religion, but often there is no philosophy with it. Then that religion can become sentimental, that religion can become fanatical, and then it can become a cause of distress. It can become a cause of danger, even disaster.
But if philosophy and religion are brought together, then it can become a very powerful tool for inner transformation. And this is a process that the Bhagavad Gita itself says that, Baho Gyaan Gapasah Pootaamad Bhaavamad. 4.10. There are many who have practised it in the past, and many have become transformed.
And even today, we could conceive of spirituality as a single science. The laboratory of our consciousness, if we practise the process of yoga, the Bhagavad Gita talks about many different yogas, and it culminates in the yoga of the heart. And the idea is that we are part of the infinite.
And when we harmonise with the infinite, then we act in harmony with our nature. Just as when we understand the principles of nature, all the scientific technology has progressed by tapping the principles of nature. So whether it is thermal power, whether it is hydroelectric power, or whether it is nuclear power, that if we understand what is the power in nature, then we learn to tap it.
Then power far greater than what is normally accessible to us, becomes accessible. So similarly, if we harmonise with the core of who we are spiritually, we are part of the whole. So through the yoga practise, when we harmonise ourselves with the whole, we gain access to a power far greater than our power.
And that power can transform us dramatically. Now there is some apprehension that our friend in North Korea may decide to send some nuclear weapons. And that can cause tremendous destruction.
Yes, nuclear weapons can destroy. They can kill hundreds, thousands of people. So even the most powerful technological weapon cannot destroy one bad habit of one person.
If an alcoholic is addicted, now drug addiction is a big problem in universities. We can’t have any bomb, explode it, and the drug addiction will stop. This is outer power.
Outer power can do extraordinary things in the outer world. But the process of spirituality, especially the process of bhakti yoga, by which we connect with the Supreme Consciousness, that can give us access to a power that can transform the world. Thousands of people all over the world have experienced this transformational potency of bhakti yoga.
That by connecting with the Absolute, through the process of devotion, we can transform ourselves in ways that would have seemed impossible to us. How does this happen? We can conclude with this point. How does this transformation happen? It actually happens through the inner purification.
We transform ourselves by harmonising with the higher power. So, if I have to lift a weight of 50 kg, it is difficult to lift that weight. But, if I have a lever, I just put my energy, I put the weight at the right point in the lever.
Then, there is a mechanism there by which 50 kg weight gets easily lifted. So, like that, if we apply our will to connect with God, through the process of devotion, we will find that this will will have a significant, really transforming influence. A couple of years ago, the New York Times had written an article on the New Year resolutions.
And almost 80 years of study has been done in human behaviour and religious commitment. And they found that, so that article was titled that, if you want to stick to your, the theme of the article, if you want to stick to your resolutions, add one more resolution. For that resolution, time and time again they have found that when it comes to overcoming negative behavioural patterns, giving up bad habits, if somebody wants to, if somebody, if a person is a religious practitioner, not just in nominal sense, I believe in something, but in the sense one is committed to practising the process, then such people are far less vulnerable to bad habits.
And they are far more capable of overcoming bad habits. The Oxford University Press published a handbook of religion and health. That’s considered one of the classic books in the spring.
And they found time and time again that people who had some kind of spiritual commitment, they were overall physically and mentally healthier than their religiously non-committed counterparts. And this is again empirical evidence of the transformation that happens in the world. And the proof of that finding is yoga.
The process of yoga that Bhagavad Gita talks about is extremely simple. There are many aspects, even bhakti yoga, one of the most accessible ways is the chanting of mantras. There are mantras, especially sound vibrations, which elevate our consciousness.
So, if you can see that, earlier I talked about this three-level experience. Our self is three-level. So, currently we are at the physical level or the emotional level.
We are sitting here on a comfortable seat opposite somebody else. Or at an emotional level we experience, I have to go there and do this work. Will I be able to complete it in time or not? So, if we can move from the physical and emotional to the spiritual level, there we experience calmness.
There we experience clarity. There we experience power. And the mantra has very special sounds that act as elevators for our consciousness.
When we enter into the mantra, by absorbing our consciousness in it, then the consciousness becomes elevated. And it comes to the spiritual level, where we experience calmness and clarity. And thus, we can understand that this kind of behaviour is not suitable.
Let me change it. Let me act in this way. So, the potential for inner improvement is opened by the philosophical understanding of the self and by the practical application through yoga practises.
If we practise those, then we practically experience the transformation. And thus, spirituality offers us the potential for self-improvement. I will summarise what I spoke today.
Then you can have at least one slide. So, the harmony can be, science can make things better. Spirituality can make people better.
So, science can help us control the outer world. Spirituality can help us to control the inner world. So, I spoke today about science.
I focused on schema. Science is conception of the self. Spirituality is conception of the self.
And which offers us the best vision and action plan for self-improvement. So, science began with the methodological principle that look for natural explanations for natural phenomena. And that helped us to understand the natural outer world much better.
But in that process, we missed out on the inner world. There are cast of fish in the net, which can catch, which has two-inch hole. It cannot catch one-inch fish.
So, by beginning with the assumption that we will not look for the non-material, science ended up neglecting the non-material. And then some people came along and they said that actually there is nothing non-material. Then science morphed into the, science was misappropriated into the ideology of scientism.
Which is actually unscientific. And the result of this was a very incomplete view of the world. As Schrodinger, our friend viewed pain and pleasure.
These are very deep experiences for us. But there is no explanation for them within science. At the sociological level, there is no room for free will in the scientific world.
And Einstein himself was disturbed by this. And then further, if we move on, we look at how there is, even on self-improvement, there is self-destruction that is happening. Millions of people are coming inside every year.
And yes, at the brain level, there is some correlation between the emotions that we experience and the stimulation of certain areas of the brain. But that is not causation. Just as tickling is not happiness, similarly the secretion of chemicals alone is not happiness.
So technology with all its sophistication is actually technologised. It will tickle us. But it cannot provide us with inner happiness.
So we are not programmed machines. As scientism would have us believe. Because we do have free will.
And a vision of the self which accommodates the reality of free will is what is offered by the spiritual wisdom of the human being. Talk about the three-level conception of the self, body, mind and soul. So that the hardware, software, and the user.
And it is the soul who has four distinctive endowments which are not present in the most sophisticated robots. Robots and computers can do information processing far better than what we can do. But they can’t experience emotions.
If our goal is simply to experience personal information, then why do we need to experience emotions? We have the capacity to experience emotions. We have consciousness because we are meant for something more than information processing. We are meant to find endowments.
And to find that, we need to change ourselves internally. So the four endowments which self-awareness. Okay, I am acting like this.
I am becoming angry. I can still come. I am going off in the wrong direction.
And determination. This emotion I resist, I will act accordingly. So when we act in this way, we will find that we will be able to alter our situation.
We will be able to change ourselves. And these four endowments are what we can increasingly tap through the process of yoga. Just like there are deeper truths in nature, which when tapped gave us access to formidable powers like say, nuclear power.
Similarly, there are deeper truths in nature. There is spiritual power that is available. And with this nuclear weapons, we cannot destroy one bad habit of one person.
But with the spiritual power, that we can tap through the practise of yoga, especially bhakti yoga, we can change ourselves internally. And thousands of people who have experience and power in change. We talked about our spirituality and religion.
Our science is spirituality as parallel science as to a comparison to philosophy, theory and experiment. Spirituality has philosophy and religion. And when we practise, not just as a set of rituals, but as a means for inner transformation, then we will see that harmony can be brought about.
Science can make things better. Spirituality can make people better. Thank you very much.
So are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. I am going to play at the rest of the team. If we are going to make the argument that all emotions cannot be reduced to a biochemical reacting, hence if we realise that, that if we reduce all emotions and all morality to a biochemical reaction, then that would negate the need for the concept of legal systems, willpower, free will, and any type of justice system that can be brought to a court to dictate or moderate human interaction and human notions of justice, equality, or equal rights.
Now, what if we were to pose the convex view that if we are all, what if we could state that we are, that emotion and the construct of, say, engaging in wholeness and conviviality versus engaging in moral duplicity or avarice towards our fellow human beings could be the result of biochemical notions that have been implanted or learned over time, both notions being theoretically possible, either nature versus nurture, and both actually taking place at the same time. What if we utilise the notion that justice systems have to be placed in accord over our lives as a natural function of the natural world, of the scientific principles of biochemical reactions having to be moderated or modulated to effectively control our, quote-unquote, biological processing of, quote-unquote, good versus evil? I’m just throwing that out there as a convex construct. So, if we say that the justice systems that are there, they are required because we are biochemically programmed to behave in particular ways, so to moderate our bad behaviours and to, say, encourage good behaviours, we need legal systems.
So, yes, that’s one way of looking at it. And we do need that because we have a programming and not everybody can resist the programming, especially when something becomes an addiction. You know, an addict has free will, but a person is an addict, their free will will be, somebody is alcoholic, their free will will be not whether I drink or not, whether I should drink five bottles of alcohol or six bottles of alcohol.
That is the extent of the free will that’s there. Sometimes some people may become so conditioned that at that particular time, they need external control. But external control alone is never enough.
If you see, there is within us something called patience. Now, the specific way in which the conscience works may be different for different people. So, somebody born and brought up in India, they consider certain things to be wrong and certain things to be right.
Somebody born in the Arabic world, they consider something else to be right and something wrong. Somebody else born in America may consider something to be right and something to be wrong. So, there may be relativity in the specific categorisation of what is right and what is wrong.
But there is an innate universality in the understanding of right and wrong. That there are some right things and there are some wrong things. So, this understanding is universal.
And that is not based simply on survival instinct. If you look at the reductionistic view of the world, we would have, all of us, working on the principle of survival of the fittest. So, if somebody is drowning, then that person doesn’t know how to swim, that’s why they are drowning.
Somebody else just jumps in, swims. When there is storm or waves over there, they jump in, they rescue that person. They come, they come.
Now, why do we do that? Now, here we are seeing, if we were working simply on the principle of survival of the fittest, then we would not, no one would jump in to swim, that person unfit, that person not. But, we see not survival of the fittest, alone operation, we see something else in operation, that is, sacrifice by the fittest. Those who are fitter, you and me, we sacrifice to help the unfit.
And, we don’t think of this as wrong. Why did you look for your life? Why did you save your own life? We consider it noble. We consider it as heroic.
When the train towers were collapsing, the natural human instinct was to rush out. And everybody is rushing out, but the firefighters were listening. And that was heroic.
So, the point is, that there is an aspect within us, which is programmed. And, to regulate that, we do need law. But, that is not all that there is to our being.
There is another aspect to us, which is our innate sense of right and wrong. And that may be less developed in some people, that may be more developed in some people. The specific understanding may be there, but it’s a universal reality that is there in everybody.
And, this, this function of right and wrong, often impels us to do things, which are biochemically wrong. To go into a river, or a sea to save someone, is risking my life. To go into a fire to save my life, to save someone is risking my life.
But, we do do it, because there is a side within us, which is noble. Which is, actually not programmed. So, basically, there is the law, which is definitely required, to control those who are highly programmed.
But, there is education, or you could say rectification, rectification which is required for those who are, who are just giving you the programming which is committed. But, there is also education and purification, which is for those, who already are evolved, and who can evolve more. So, both have to be required in any society.
A society that works only on education, without rectification, those who are miscreant, they will have free reign over. The society which focusses only on rectification, no education, it will just become like a tyrannical society, where there has to be perpetual power control, with even a slight lapse, leading to collapse. So, we need a balance in both.
So, basically, Darwin did get it right when he said, survival of the fittest. It is a fact of nature. But, it is not the only fact of nature.
There is another aspect to our being, which transcends our biological interior. And that is our spiritual self. So, we human beings, have, we could say, a divider of conflict and existence.
We have a spiritual side, which longs for deeper understanding of things, which longs for a bigger purpose for life. But, we also have a biological side, which just looks for immediate gratification, immediate interest. So, our heart, our soul, looks for meaning.
Our tongue settles for pudding. We try to understand deeper truths of life, but if some quick pleasure comes up, we forget that. So, this is a conflict in existence that we are living.
So, if the biological side becomes too strong, then law is required to control it. Because, the more the biological side becomes stronger, human society degenerates to the level of jungle. And because we have some sense, by which, we don’t want to have the law of the jungle, simply right is right.
That’s why, we create systems of law, by which, even the weak are protected. So, the animal side within, the biological side within us, to regulate that, again, if you consider, where does the sense of regulating that come from? If we were simply biological creatures, the animals, they simply have the right to survive. They don’t have a system of law.
They simply act according to nature. So, why do we even think of regulating our biological side? There is something within us, which recognises that simply acting according to a biological imperative is not right. When Hitler wanted to destroy all those who were physically incapable, when he wanted to kill all handicapped people, he wanted to kill all people who were infertile, he started that.
He had his own idea of eugenics. Do we find that moral? We don’t think so. Hitler was simply acting according to, we could say, biological imperative, expanded through state initiative.
But, we find that wrong. So, our sense which tells us this is wrong, our sense which makes us want to have a system of justice, that points to something beyond our biology. That points to our spirituality.
So, there is a tension between our biology and our spirituality. And for those who are driven more by their biology than by their spirituality, for them we need systems of law. We want all human beings to evolve to a more spiritual level of consciousness.
And that’s why there is education, there is communication, there is elevation of consciousness, that also has to be facilitated. So, we need both systems for spiritual development and we also need systems for regulation of biological impulses. Does that answer your question? Thank you.
Any other questions or comments? Yes, please. Thank you so much for your videos. I have been following your videos on YouTube.
So, I have two questions. First is regarding this context what you have been discussing. And one is little like connected to it but little separate thing.
So, first is regarding spirituality. It consists of philosophy and religion. So, philosophy is like, I have in few lectures like, religion without like philosophy it’s a sentimental sentiments and philosophy without religion is mental speculation.
So, in this context can you please like little bit more elaborate, like suppose if religion is also like followed by the rituals. So, if the rituals, those rituals are different than the philosophy and so if those rituals are not followed, so this is, those are not philosophies or in what philosophy we are talking about, it’s like just separate than religion. So, I just want like little more elaboration on this.
My second question is… No, one question. Okay. Sure, sure.
So, question is that are the religious rituals entirely separate from philosophy? Yes. And if different people are following different rituals, how do we see their philosophies? Is that also part of the question? Yes, yes. So, basically the religious practises, whatever they may be, they are meant for a purpose.
That purpose is raising of consciousness. So, we can envision a mountain and the top of the mountain is spiritual consciousness. The bottom of the mountain is mental consciousness.
Now, from different sides of the mountain, there will be different paths. Some path will be very slippery, some path will be very sandy, some path will be filled with a lot of water which you have to navigate. So, now based on which path the particular person is climbing up, they will need a different set of abilities.
They will need even a different set of skills. Although the purpose is the same of rising to the top of the mountain, the set of skills and the set of equipments require anything depending on the path that they are taking. Similarly, one of the great saints in our tradition, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he says that the same one absolute truth has provided, is understood in different ways by different traditions.
And that one message is revealed according to people’s culture, people’s language, people’s mentalities, people’s conceptual orientations. And then an appropriate method is provided for them to rise up. Because different people are from different backgrounds, so the practises that they need for their elevation can be, and not only vary, sometimes they can be opposite.
So, for example, the principle of offering respect. You know, say, in the Hindu tradition, people may offer respect by holding their hands. Or we talk about respecting gods.
In the Muslim tradition, they raise their hands and then ask. In the Christian tradition, one may do mass. The specific gestures will be different.
But the purpose is the same. If you only do externals, you think this is all different. Now sometimes the practises can only be different, they can be opposite.
Consider the traffic system. I come from India, and whenever I drive a car, or whenever I go with somebody else in a car, I always, when I come from India to America, or go from America to India, just like you have a jet lag, I get a car lag. I end up going on the opposite side of the car.
So if somebody else is driving me in India, the driver’s side is on one side, the passenger’s side is on the other side. So what happens is, in both cases, the purpose of the traffic rules is the same. It’s a regulation of traffic.
It’s to ensure that smooth transportation happens. But the rule, the purpose is the same, but the rule is only different, it’s opposite. In one country we travel on the right side, in another country we travel on the left side.
So that’s the circumstance. We have to look beyond the specifics. If you only look at the externals, these rules are opposite.
But the purpose is the same. Similarly, there can be specific rituals which will be different, some may even be opposite. But the purpose is the same.
Now when I say purpose is the same, here purpose is not something which is fixed in nature. The purpose is something which has to be understood individually. That means, the practitioners of different religious practises, they need to be old enough to see the common purpose and pursue that common purpose.
Sometimes what may happen is, that I am climbing up this path of the mountain, and I see somebody else is climbing up from some other path. And then, I go down, and I go round to their path, Hey, your path is wrong, don’t go up, don’t go up. And I keep pulling them down from there.
And I spend my whole life going round the bottom of their path, pulling everyone else down. What happens? I don’t let them go up, and I also don’t go up. So, if there is unnecessary conflict or confrontation, where everybody comes together in a polemical mood to pull each other down, then that doesn’t lead to any growth for anyone.
So, now this of course does not mean that all paths are right.