Technology, Spirituality and the Search for a Meaningful life

[Talk to IIT Students at ISKCON, Mira Road, Mumbai, India]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Shri Prabhupada Ki Hare Krishna I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you today and I’ll speak on the topic of Econology, Spirituality and the search for a meaningful life last year I was invited to Cambridge University to give a talk on Science and Spirituality while we were going there we passed by Woolstope Alley, that is the place where Newton is said to have seen the fruit, the apple falling, that same tree, remarkably it’s still there and that place is like a pilgrimage place for scientists so people who are scientifically minded scientifically inspired, they go there and they contemplate on Newton’s brilliance in ordinary observation and an extraordinary inference from that observation it’s interesting if you look at the event of fruit falling now millions of people have seen fruits falling if instead of Newton there had been a monkey who had seen the apple fall what would the monkey have done? eaten the fruit and gone on his way most humans would also have done the same thing but Newton asked some question what was the question? what made this fruit fall? now that question what made this fruit fall and the answer which came from it by which he posited the theory of gravity that was the engine from which science took off in the pre-modern times and ushered the modern times thereafter however while it is his brilliance in coming up with that answer when that question came up we can look at something more fundamentally what made him ask this question? he asked the question because he asked the question because he felt that there is an orderly universe so he asked then that asking involves an assumption that things in nature don’t happen in a disorderly way that if a fruit is falling to the ground there is some order in nature which we are trying to uncover if that assumption or that pre-understanding had not been there then he would not have asked also but there is an assumption that there is an inherent order in nature and that order is what science tries to uncover so the key point to understand here is that science begins with faith sometimes people think science and religion are opposite because science deals with facts and religion deals with faith however science cannot progress unless there is the faith that there is an order in nature this is the foundational faith that every scientist needs to have and this correlates with the Bhagavad Gita 4.39 Krishna says Krishna says who can acquire knowledge? only those who have faith faith is the precondition for knowledge faith is not in opposition to knowledge faith is the foundation of knowledge so what faith are we talking about? that there is an order in nature what faith is required? obviously there is an order in nature but why should there be an order at all? if we consider the atheistic rendition of how the universe came about then the autobiography of the universe or the biography of the universe would be something like this we just put aside all that scientific jargon all the terminology for various theories and various kinds of particles whatever it is all we put it aside what it essentially boils down to is that nothing existed because of nothing nothing exploded because of nothing and gave rise to everything three sentences nothing existed because of nothing nothing exploded because of nothing and nothing gave rise to everything it’s very logical isn’t it? actually if we think objectively comparing the atheistic version of the universe’s history with the theistic understanding what we will end up with is that actually if we see the order in the universe where did that order come from? that order needs to have some order order infusing source so actually speaking I think it requires too much faith to be an atheist we don’t see anywhere nothing giving rise to everything everything comes from something so the atheistic version of the universe requires a lot of faith nothing existed because of nothing nothing exploded because of nothing and nothing gave rise to everything so actually the point here is that science and atheism can’t go together sometimes people say if you are scientific how can you believe in God? actually if you are scientific you cannot be atheistic why? science itself may not prove the existence of God because God is spiritual God cannot be known directly through science but science requires a foundational faith that there is an order in nature and the atheistic world view has no explanation for where that order came from even if we have some theories say even if we talk arguments say we talk about theory of evolution or theory of big bang but all these theories require something pre-existent theories are essentially laws when theories become proven they become laws but laws are not causes laws describe the correlation between cause and effect yesterday there was a cricket match between India and Sri Lanka in which an Indian batsman hit a record number of sixes so when this batsman hit a record number of sixes after the match there is an interview how did you hit so many sixes? by the laws of motion ok you may say laws of motion is fine yes you can say ok the ball came at this height with this pace and the batsman hit with this force and because the batsman hit with this force that’s why it cleared the boundary or the ball and the bat hit with this angle this was the momentum that came in it would have fallen inside the boundary but it fell outside the boundary so now what laws explain is the correlation between cause and effect because the ball and the bat came in full contact with each other that’s why the ball was propelled with this force and that’s why it cleared the boundary but the law is not the cause so the laws of motion themselves do not explain the existence of a cricket bat, they don’t explain the existence of a cricket ball they don’t explain the existence of a cricket field they don’t explain the existence of a cricketer they don’t explain even the action of the cricketer in hitting the ball what they for the laws to act there has to be first of all the preconditions present there has to be some substratum on which the law will act and that substratum, that pre-existing substance, in this case, there has to be a cricket ground, there has to be a bat, there has to be a ball and then there has to be an agent who starts the cause who comprises the cause and once the cause is there then we can say, the batsman hit the ball and it went to the fielder, that batsman hit the ball and that cleared the fence why the difference? this was hit with greater force or there was a greater momentum because the contact between the ball and bat was greater and that’s why it cleared the fence so the law of motion or in general laws of science they cannot explain everything when there is a cause, when there is an effect and when there is some substance on which the cause can act and the effect can emerge and there is a causal agent which activates the cause then the laws of nature can explain things so science is a very powerful body of knowledge for, by which we can uncover some of the laws of nature many of the laws of nature but no matter how much science advances it cannot tell us where the laws of nature came from why the laws of nature should be present at all why for that matter nature itself should be present at all so we this is not criticizing science, this is specifying what science is science is as I said an extremely powerful body of knowledge however for that body of knowledge to operate first of all nature has to exist and nature has to be functioning according to certain laws now why nature exists, why it functions according to those laws that is something science can’t tell us now this is important for one more purpose if we look at our own lives we see that we all get the question sometime or the other what is the purpose of life when I was in New York, we passed by the place where the twin towers were there and even now that place in New York where the twin towers were there, that’s made like a memorial to the victims who suffered and who died in that place so now there actually the fall it was not just a building that fell it was more what the building represented it represented the it was a visible powerful symbol of the prosperity and the security of America and when the building fell it was that conception of prosperity and security that was not just challenged but it was battered and among the few occasions in the history of Google that God came as the highest search item what is the point of it all if life can just be finished off in one moment like this things which are so big, so magnificent, they can just be finished off why what are we living for what really counts in life another point here taking this point forward our topic was technology, spirituality and the search for a meaningful life so the first point I made is science is also a search for meaning, a search for order when scientists observe nature, they try to find out the order in whatever they are observing and it’s not just in science in daily life also we try to find order why did he behave like this, why did she do like that, why did this happen why did these twin towers fall so we try to look for sense it’s an innate human need to try to seek meaning in life and few things challenge our search for meaning or even frustrate our search for meaning as much as death and not just death but the sudden unexpected and massive occurrence of death so sometimes people ask that okay now why do bad things happen to good people we can turn around and this is one of the strongest arguments which FEC used to say that a good god cannot exist now we can turn around the question and ask why should bad things not happen to good people what do you mean bad things should not happen to good people why not why not where if we assume atheism as the world view where in the atheistic world view is it written that good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people in fact the atheistic world view is basically materialistic and in the materialistic world view matter is all that exists so if matter is all that exists matter has no conception of good or bad when a coconut falls from a tree the coconut may fall on the ground or coconut may fall on somebody’s head the coconut doesn’t know anything it simply falls so if laws of nature are all that exist then there is no conception of good or bad is this point clear in the materialistic world view there is no conception of anything as good or bad no no but i know this is good that is bad ok but on what basis so on what basis do we say that good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people there is no basis for that so when we say why do bad things happen to good people there is assumption that yeah there is a causal connection between things and good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people but what is the basis of this assumption in an atheistic world view there is no basis for this assumption science Einstein himself is considered probably the greatest scientist of the last century and he was profoundly troubled by the implications of a scientistic world view not scientific scientistic science is a tool for acquiring knowledge scientism is an ideology like we have communism, nationalism like that scientism scientism is an ideology which holds that science is the sole source of all knowledge that science can tell us everything about everything scientism is different from science and there is no scientific experiment to prove scientism what experiment can we do to say that whatever science tells us science can tell us everything about everything there is no experiment or no how can you do that so actually scientism itself is not scientific Einstein himself said that we can talk about the ethical foundations of science whether science is being used ethically or not but we cannot talk about the scientific foundation of ethics what is right and what is wrong science can’t tell us that this doesn’t make science bad I am using very careful language over here there is moral, there is immoral and there is amoral amoral means it’s unconcerned about morality so for example A if I am sitting here and somebody walks by carrying a heavy object and then they see my foot is here and they drop it right on my foot why did you do that if they did it unknowingly that’s ok but if they did it deliberately why would you do that so we could say that is wrong there is right and there is wrong but if there is a coconut tree over there and from that coconut falls it’s not intentional over there so the point which I am making here is that science because it looks for the laws of nature it doesn’t consider concern itself with morality science can tell a young person who has a grandmother who has left a huge inheritance for that person that if this young man puts arsenic in his grandmother’s breakfast he can get the inheritance in a few days whether he should put that or not that science cannot tell we have an innate moral sense which tells us this is not good I should not do this so Einstein said we can talk about the ethical foundation of science but not the scientific foundation of ethics so again the point which I am making here is in our day to day life also we understand there is some order now exactly what is the order what are good things what are bad things what good things lead to which good things what bad things lead to which bad things these are specifics and these can be discussed separately just as in science there are so many specific laws and even now we are discovering more and more specific laws and theories and principles but we are not talking about specifics we are talking in terms of universals over here in terms of universals in science we search for meaning we search for order we search for patterns and in day to day life also we search for patterns but just as atheism can’t explain why there are patterns why there are orders in nature similarly atheism can’t explain why there should be a moral order in the world why should good things happen to good people why should bad things not happen to good people more fundamentally so we talked about nature we talked about action let’s talk about identity we all have an innate sense of who that we are irreducible beings if I ask you do you exist? what do you mean? obviously I exist if you are asking this question we’ll ask the question does your intelligence exist? it’s obvious we exist but actually who is the I that exists? if we see all the cells in our body die and change, scientists were of the notion that actually our brain cells remain the same but even our brain cells keep changing so now our sense of identity it’s not just identity but our identity is associated with memory I was a child I am this now, I learned this I know this language, I know speaking I know writing, I know cycling, I know car driving whatever these are things which we know where and how is our identity and memory stored so researchers found that actually when we look at our brain cells nothing remains constant if nothing remains constant say suppose right now I want to talk with him so if I write a message and give to him if I give that message to him it’s ok if I give the message to him and suppose after that hypothetically I could change every single molecule that was there on the paper on which I wrote the message and then I change every single molecule and still I found the message is as it is how is that possible? if all the molecules that comprise the paper on which the message I have written is removed and if still the message remains that would mean that the message is not written only on the paper it’s also written somewhere else from which it is getting repeatedly imprinted on the paper again and again and again so similarly if all our brain cells change then how is it that despite the change of our brain cells our sense of identity remains the same our memory remains the same that is because we are not material there is something more to our identity than our body and our brain Dr.Wilder Penfield is a Nobel laureate neurosurgeon when I was in Canada in Toronto University I gave a talk at an auditorium that is dedicated in his memory he is considered the greatest scientist in Canada and he did 40 years of research on the brain and after 40 years of study he wrote a book called the mystery of the mind and in that book he says that the brain is like a computer but it is programmed by something outside of itself so I explained elaborately about his research in my book demystifying reincarnation and now I talked about three things till now first was nature second was our activity, our day to day activity and the order that is required in that third is our own identity so last I will talk about is our desire or our longing we all long to live forever not only long to live forever we also long to love forever among the millions of movies and novels that have been written the majority are romance and majority of romance novels or movies they end with H E A happily ever after now if you look at happily ever after the Bhagavad Gita in 8.15 says Dukhalem Ashashvato it is exactly opposite happily ever after Dukhalem Ashashvato now we all know that nobody lives forever and yes different people in different marital relationships may have different levels of conflict but to be forever happy that doesn’t work out certainly the happiness part that may be subject to how happy one is but objectively there is no forever and yet we all long to live forever and to love forever where does this longing come from if we are simply products of matter as atheism would have us believe then all our desires will be circumstantial our desires will come from the world around us if we are simply material creatures but in the world around us nothing lasts forever even the huge mountains when I was in America, I was in Denver among the tallest places we had gone to a mountain top for a retreat among the tallest places in the whole world it is, not in terms of mountain peaks but tallest places where people live on a regular basis so you know we had a number of devotees who had a retreat all of us had our oxygen tanks with us because not that we are carrying it constantly but at any moment because the atmosphere is rarefied, the oxygen may decrease so it was there for us, for everyone so now if you go on top of those mountains and look down the mountains appear so huge but still even those mountains are not eternal they are also having their finite life span so if nothing around us is eternal why do we have a desire for eternal life if a child from a tribe in central Africa who has had no contact with the world at all whose whole world is basically the tribal village and the forest around it that child suddenly one day goes to his mother and says mummy mummy I want a pizza the first thing what will the mother ask suppose the mother has gone out and she knows what a pizza is she will ask the child how did you know about pizza there is nothing in your circumstance by which you could have thought of ever coming to know about pizza so there is nothing in the world around us which lives forever then why do we have the desire to live forever where does this desire come from it cannot come from our circumstance because nothing in our circumstance lives forever a desire has to come from our core that core the Bhagavad Gita says is eternal we are souls the soul is eternal the soul longs for eternal life and the soul projects that desire for eternal life onto the body and that’s why we long for eternal life 13.22 the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says the soul becomes caught in matter because of the desire to enjoy material things and that’s how the soul goes through good and bad in this world so the key thing for us to understand is that even our desire we may have so many desires to fulfill but ultimately we want to have and have forever where does this foundational desire come from that comes from our spirituality so it is from the spiritual core that our deepest desires come and it is at the spiritual level that our deepest desires will be fulfilled I will conclude with last part now in our search for a meaningful life so now we have many different desires and we have many different ways in which we can fulfill desires suppose if we are choosing a multiple choice we are giving an answer to multiple choice exam now is it that the answer that is the first alternative that is going to be right always no we decide which alternative is right not based on its location but based on its content and we evaluate isn’t it similarly within our consciousness many desires come and just because the desire comes first that does not necessarily mean it is a good desire for us or it is our best desire or say if a teacher asks a question and say some student answers the question very loudly is the loudest answer the best answer obviously not you have to see again the content of the answer similarly within us certain desires scream very loudly I want to eat this, I want to watch this I want to touch this, I want to buy this and these desires unfortunately for us because the desire that scream the loudest within us we tend to fulfill them first however the more we keep doing what we like the more we keep doing what we like the more we end up disliking ourselves what do I mean the more we keep doing what we like the more we end up disliking ourselves I will talk about 2-3 different examples suppose somebody just they get an urge to drink and they drink now sometimes it is fashionable to drink it is fashionable to smoke but if they keep drinking whenever they feel like it what will happen they become alcoholics and if they become an alcoholic they will then they waste their money they waste their time they lose their self-respect, they lose the respect of others when people become addicted one of the biggest problems for them is self-loathing self-loathing means I dislike myself, I hate myself why am I like this why can’t I do what I want to do why do I keep doing these things so this if we keep doing what we like we end up disliking ourselves I will start from a very simple level sometimes some people just keep eating a lot now some people may are genetically they are such that even if they eat a lot some people eat a little and still they become very fat some people are genetically like that some people they eat a they treat their tongue like a conveyor belt they eat a lot but still they stay thin the body just has strong metabolism by which they can just digest whatever they eat but still however good the body metabolism is if somebody just keeps eating, eating, eating what will happen is that eventually they will become obese, they will become terribly fat and then they will end up disliking themselves why am I so fat so if we keep doing whatever we like we end up disliking ourselves so we if we want to have a meaningful life we don’t have to reject our desires but we have to select our desires just as we have to select just the first option of multiple choices is not necessarily right just the student who speaks the loudest doesn’t necessarily give the right answer you have to evaluate based on content similarly many desires will come within us and today through technology fulfilling our desires becomes very easy very easy because you want to watch something the entertainment from all over the world is available, just a few clicks to buy something also we don’t have to go to a shopping mall stay at one place buy it nowadays even people in the past when people had I was in an American University there in America they have declared drug addiction to be like a big it’s a national disaster in some places they have called it so what has happened earlier when people had to peddle drugs then they would meet behind some canteen or some secret place and sell drugs but now with everybody online there is internet and there is what is called a darknet the darknet is that which is not traceable through google and people who want to buy drugs get drugs just go on the internet and order drugs and home delivery it comes so I met one boy he became a devotee later but he this young intelligent boy he got, his grandmother passed away, his grandmother and his mother they did not get along well his grandmother was very wealthy so his grandmother when she died she gave her full inheritance to her son, not to her daughter to her grandson, to this boy and he was just around 18 he got 1 million dollars in inheritance and that was a time when he was exploring drugs started taking drugs and he said that actually within 6 months he spent 1 million dollars spent everything and when he was taking those drugs there in America by the time people are 16, 17, 18 they go out of their parents homes and they stay on their own that’s what is the culture they stay in hostel or they take their own rooms so he said around 8 to 10 months he spent 1 million dollars he did not go out of his room more than 6 times stayed in the room watched TV watched internet take drugs get stoned if you want food also order the food everything will come to you so here of course fortunately after that he met some devotees and then the last part of inheritance he used to go to a rehabilitation center and that rehabilitation center somebody had some devotees were coming so that’s how he became connected he was protected by that but the important thing is that whichever desires come up within us it’s very easy to fulfill them but the fulfilling of our desires will not bring fulfillment it will bring frustration I eat this, I watch this I do this, I buy this it will not bring fulfillment it will bring frustration that’s why we need a healthy intelligence by which we can select our desires and how will we select? we will be able to select properly when we have a sense of the purpose and meaning of life if I’m driving from here say I’m going to the temple for a program then I just go straight, if I have one and a half hours to reach for the program, I just go straight I’m just driving for fun just go out, then I say oh this hotel nice, let me go and eat it oh this movie, let me go and watch it oh there’s a bar over there, let me go and enjoy there’s a pub over here, let me go here so if we don’t have any strong purpose then we will fall prey to whatever desires come up within us if I have a strong purpose then even if the desire comes nice food over here, I have to go for this program, I have to go for this interview I have to go for this exam, whatever it is so for us bhakti is not the process of rejecting desires if we think oh I have to give up this and I have to give up that I can’t give it up no, what we have to say is bhakti is a process of taking up taking up the ultimate desire the desire for fulfilling our deepest desires, what we long for as I said to live forever and to love forever so the bhagavad gita explains that there is an all attractive supreme and we are meant to love him we are souls on a multi life journey of spiritual evolution and in this multi life journey of spiritual evolution the more we connect with the eternal, the more that connection will bring satisfaction so whatever we do in our life it is all meant to help us connect more and more with the eternal so if we are studying as students we do it in a mood of service to Krishna, we are professionals, we do a professional job in a mood of service to Krishna when we have this purpose, whatever I am doing my ultimate purpose is to connect with Krishna and this knowledge we get by study of scripture, study of the bhagavad gita and this understanding we get through the association of devotees so when we start living in this way, when we become spiritually purposeful we will find that even in this life we will become joyful it is not that we will always have joy, life will always have problems for everyone but a basic sense of purposefulness will be there in our life and a basic level of joyfulness will be there because we are connected with Krishna and as the connection with Krishna becomes stronger and stronger then the joy will also become greater and thus the quest for a meaningful life it cannot be fulfilled only through technology technology is again value neutral, it is amoral technology is not bad, internet is not bad cell phone is not bad in itself but if we do not have the discretion to use it properly then whichever is the loudest desire that comes within us, we try to fulfill them and then we get caught completely but if we have the discretion to understand, not my loudest desire but my deepest desire and I aim to fulfill that that understanding of what is our deepest desire and the conviction to choose our deepest desire that will come through purification when we practice bhakti, by this we all can whatever work we are doing in our life we can have greater meaning and greater joy, that is life’s ultimate success because whatever we achieve if it doesn’t bring us joy, it doesn’t bring us fulfillment what is the point of it all? the point of it all is actually to find joy listen I spoke at a university in America its name was the American Institute of Illusion it is actually the institute where they teach everything related to movies, how to make virtual reality, not in terms of science but in terms of applied technology so how to act, how to dramatize how to write screenplay how to use special effects, all of that so there they have a memorial to Robin Williams, the auditorium where I spoke the memorial to Robin Williams Robin Williams was one of the world’s biggest comedians most very famous comedian, unfortunately he committed suicide normally we think comedians are people who are happy isn’t it? they make everyone laugh, so they should be happy so after he committed suicide I wrote an article titled, After the Laughter yeah, on screen they will laugh they will make others laugh but what after the laughter? so actually we understand that somebody may laugh but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are happy because laughter is basically it’s more like emotional or intellectual tickling sometimes when you want to play if you have some small child in your family, you may tickle the belly of the child you go and tickle the belly the child will start laughing now when the child laughs is that laughter happiness? no, if the laughter from tickling were happiness then the most important scientific invention in the search for happiness would be a perpetual tickling machine all of us can have our perpetual tickling machines and whenever you want to be happy just tickle, tickle, tickle no, that will not bring happiness so actually just as physical tickling cannot bring happiness similarly comedy is fine, jokes are fine but they themselves don’t comprise happiness and technology is also basically a sophisticated way of tickling ourselves through special effects through entertainment, through movies we are tickling ourselves in fact you could call technology technology you know technology that which tickles us again nothing against technology is the purpose for which we use it if technology we use technology to tickle ourselves and fulfill our superficial desires then we will mislead ourselves but if we use technology with the spirituality understanding the purpose of life then that spirituality can help us find a life that is purposeful and joyful so I will summarize what I spoke today so I spoke about how technology, spirituality and the search for a meaningful life first I spoke about how in technology science begins with the assumption that there is an order in nature Newton’s brilliance was that he found an order in nature but where did nature get that order science can by its discovery and its progress find laws of nature but laws explain the correlation between cause and effect they don’t explain everything laws of nature require nature to exist previously and why those laws exist, that also requires explanation so atheism requires so much faith cause atheism cannot explain where nature came from, where the laws came from so theism actually explains things much more satisfactory by saying that there is a starting with an intelligent being who has infused intelligent order in the world so from nature we talked about activity why do bad things happen to good people why should they not happen why should there be a correlation between good and bad that order again atheism has no explanation for that so we search for meaning, just as we search for a natural order in physical things, we also look for a moral order in the way things happen so where did this order come from and third point I talked about is about our own identity all the cells in the brain change but still our sense of identity and memory remains the same like if I remove all the molecules, replace all the molecules on a paper but still the message remains the same so our identity is not just material the brain like a computer is programmed for something outside of itself that’s what Wilter Penfield he said and then I talked about our desires just as an African child desiring a pizza raises a question where did that knowledge of pizza come from similarly when everything around us is temporary where does our desire to live forever and to love forever come from it comes not from the outer material thing, it comes from the inner spiritual core and our deepest desire is to connect with the eternal when the eternal soul connects with the eternal whole that brings eternal happiness so we are not meant to reject desires, we are meant to select desires but certain desires scream very loudly within us and we impulsively tend to fulfill them and technology makes it very easy for us to fulfill those desires but if we let scripture guide us spiritual knowledge guide us then we will be able to select desires wisely otherwise we will end up tickling ourselves and the more we keep doing what we like the more we end up disliking ourselves but when we wisely choose our deepest desires then we will move towards a meaningful and joyful life we need a strong sense of purpose to reject the lower desires and that strong sense of purpose comes through spiritual knowledge thank you very much Hare Krishna so are there any questions or comments yes so I said that if the data is stored in the brain then why is it that damage to the brain causes loss of memory there are memory is a profound mystery how memory works and even people who have amnesia you know when I was in New Jersey I was at a mental health care center and mental health care center is a polite way of what in Hindi we will call Pagal Khana of course the word Pagal Khana has a very negative connotation people who need mental health care are not necessarily sick they are sick but the point is there is a person with amnesia and it is amazing these people they forget their name they forget their identity but they know language they can speak fluently in English there is this person he was an airplane pilot and he knew how to fly a plane in fact he inferred his identity he knew he knew so much about a plane there is some plane, a very advanced version of Boeing planes there are only something like 23 pilots in the world who know that and he knew that and based on that they found out his identity so he had lost all his identity but the point is that he was able to remember everything about how to operate a plane but he lost his sense of identity so memory is a mystery now what we understand is that the brain is one location for memory there are short term things which for example I observe over here this is a building with four doors two here, one there and one behind now this unless this building is very important for me I may not remember that for a long time so there are some stimuli which just come in they register briefly and they go away some don’t register at all some register very deeply so basically some of our memory is stored in the brain some of it is stored in the mind the mind is the subtle interface between the soul and the body now to give another example if you use if I use a computer there is a hardware, there is a software and there is a user now most of my data will be in the hardware if I delete it if my computer crashes my hard disk crashes, I lose the data but if I have logged in using my gmail id then my preferences my search results my bookmarked sites all these will be stored and as soon as I log in to another computer all those preferences and all that data will come so with respect to my data some of it is stored in the computer some of it is stored on the cloud somewhere so like that with respect to our memory some of it is stored in the brain some of it is stored in the mind and that’s how some people can remember their previous lives some people may remember their previous lives most of us don’t but still all of us have certain tendencies some people are just so good at maths I was in Columbus Ohio there was one student, Indian boy five and a half years old he was the national robotic champion over there five and a half years old he had made his own robo brilliant, and it’s not that sorry not five and a half, seven and a half five and a half is too early but he is brilliant so now it is what are those toys, logo or lego what is it called, you put the pieces together lego so the first thing he started doing since he was a child was playing with lego toys and he could just make shapes he could clearly see this skill was not just something he had learnt right now he was carrying it on from a previous life not necessarily robotics per se but just the idea of putting things together some people are brilliant at maths some people are great at chess, what we call as prodigies so there are things related to the physical body which are stored in the physical body and the memory is there and it is lost but there are things which are more related to the subtle body so that may be remembered and many people who travel to different parts of the world there are I met one devotee who has travelled a lot and he says there are some places when he goes he just hears the language I have heard this language he went to Netherlands, he says I have never been to Netherlands before but when he went to Netherlands and he heard the language he was there for one week and he picked up the language not just picked up in terms of few words he just actually picked it up fluently so now all these are not conclusions they are indicative indicative of the point that actually there is something which is stored in the subtle body something is stored in the brain because the brain is also a tool for functioning so at a physical level I may know fluent English but if my throat is damaged I will not be able to speak one word in English similarly even if the memory is stored in the subtle body if the brain gets damaged then that tool is no longer functioning properly and therefore that part of the memory can become inaccessible does it answer your question? yes okay so do we follow spirituality to fulfill our enjoyment mentality even our desires we say that we should be fulfilled see we are not meant to suffer it’s not that spiritual life means we have to suffer the point is there is intelligent enjoyment and there is unhealthy enjoyment so the soul is by nature joyful and enjoyment itself is not bad it is the way we enjoy that determines what is good and what is bad so we are parts of the supreme and he is joyful and we are also meant to be joyful but there is a joy which connects by connection with the whole and there is a joy which comes by disconnection from the whole the joy which comes by disconnection from the whole is fleeting it is like a drop of water the joy which comes by connection with the whole is like an ocean so we are meant to find joy in Krishna and we find joy in Krishna by loving Krishna by serving Krishna by harmonizing with him so we are meant to we are meant to not give up the enjoyment but find the best enjoyment and not in a self-centered way bhakti is the joy which helps us to find joy helps us to share joy there is some delicious food item I eat it and somebody else can’t eat it that’s finite but if we learn to relish Krishna’s message we share Krishna’s names we share Krishna’s message then we share with others and the more we relish it, the more we share with others so it increases the devotee has great taste for Krishna katha the devotee shares Krishna’s message everybody becomes joyful ok yes eat something some delicious food we enjoy certain things this is material body material body cannot interact ok so when we enjoy worldly objects who is it that is enjoying is the body, is the soul the soul enjoying by misidentification the soul’s consciousness gets projected into the body and through the body to other things just like when people watch a movie at that time who is enjoying it is they who are enjoying but it is their consciousness projected into the body to the extent that projection goes on it suddenly at the climax of a movie suddenly power goes off what happened people start screaming, yelling because their enjoyment has started so it is the enjoyment ultimately just a moving illusion over there that’s fine while the illusion is going on it appears real and who and if the spectators the audience is sleeping they will not enjoy they will enjoy sleep but they will not enjoy the movie so the thing is that consciousness has to be present and consciousness has to be projected into that object to the extent our consciousness is projected into that object to that extent we enjoy so the soul is spiritual but the soul doesn’t always enjoy spiritual happiness only the soul may seek material happiness also but that’s where its consciousness is just like I may be sitting here and I may have a nice friend with whom I can chit chat nicely but suppose I am watching something on my phone I can instead of discussing and having a fulfilling discussion with somebody I can be looking at my phone and watching something reading something and trying to get some reciprocation over there trying to get some enjoyment over there so like that where our consciousness is that’s where we will seek pleasure and that’s where we will experience trouble also so even after we hear that we are not the body we are the soul why can’t we act on it it’s habit it is suppose the floor is inclined like this then and say here I have got some valuable electronic equipment I don’t want it to get wet now if water falls on this naturally the water will flow this way just my not wanting it to flow this way is not going to be good if I don’t want the water to flow this way do three things restriction redirection reconstruction to create some band or some blockage by which the water will not flow in this way the water keeps flowing I use a mop I use a brush and push in the other direction and eventually for lasting solution I have to reconstruct the floor so that it is inclined this way the same way whatever activities we have done in the past repeatedly our mind has developed an inclination towards it you can say our mental floor has become inclined in that way so by default our thoughts and desires will go in that direction there is nothing to it doesn’t necessarily make us bad people it doesn’t make us people with poor will power it’s not like that that’s the way the mind functions so we have to do these three things restriction yeah I’ll come to that so restriction means that we try to create some obstacle between us and that particular gratification so then there is redirection that means if the mind goes in a particular direction we consciously get it back towards something else the reconstruction is what primarily is spiritual when by the repeated practice of bhakti our mind becomes attached to Krishna when the mind becomes attached to Krishna then the mind will naturally flow towards Krishna so when the mind becomes attached to Krishna then we will no longer have difficulties in sticking to our resolutions till then it is going to be difficult so you don’t have to become discouraged even if the water goes in this direction as soon as we realize it’s going in this direction push it back so we have to be patient we can’t expect overnight results and in fact the expectation that we should immediately be able to stick to our resolutions that expectation itself is often arising from the ego because earlier I thought I will be the enjoyer I will enjoy the gratification of my senses now I will enjoy the renunciation of the senses I have given up everything all of these people they are so attached I am so advanced gradually it will happen just be patient keep practicing bhakti no matter what happens by the practice of bhakti gradually things will change if the mind is material how can it trouble us the mind is subtle matter so it is like software so software often has some default settings so I sometimes use speech to text software text to speech software after I write an article I get the computer to read it out so now once I wrote an article in which I wrote the soul is sat chit anand the computer edited the soul is saturday chit anand it transforms sat as from its point of view sat is saturday so this is it is the auto correct which went incorrect so like that there are default settings within us so the mind is like a software and it has its default settings so if the mind is troubling that means what the mind’s default settings are popping up the mind’s default setting may be craving, it may be anger it may be critical mentality it may be pessimism it may be self doubt whatever it is so then if that is my default setting then I have to conscientiously note ok this is my default setting mind goes off in that direction I have to bring it back Krishna says wherever and whenever the mind wanders bring it back to the control of the self any other questions we will come back to it initially if we develop it and do all this after that after sometimes mind creates trouble in the form of self doubt self doubt about what whether I can do ok so if we are self doubt what do we do we have to develop healthy sources of self reflection around us healthy source of self reflection means that suppose say I came for the program and I put tilak I look in the mirror the mirror is distorted then no matter how straight I make the tilak, the tilak will always appear twisted so in this case the problem is not with the tilak the problem is with the mirror similarly for us we all look at ourselves through the eyes of others what do others think about us we there are some sources of self reflection looking at ourselves which are healthy and some sources of self reflection are unhealthy so maybe in our childhood we were compared with somebody why can’t you be like this, why can’t you be like that why can’t you be like your brother why can’t you be like this neighbour, why can’t you be like that or even among devotees also sometimes there can be unhealthy comparison some devotees may be very talented in one field but others may be talented in some other field so we have to find out what is the source of our self doubt sometimes it is difficult to find that doubt but more important is what are the sources of self confidence not self confidence in an egoistic sense but self confidence in a spiritual sense that I am a part of Krishna and Krishna no matter how I am, Krishna still loves me our greatest weakness is not lust our greatest weakness is not anger it is not greed our greatest weakness is our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us our greatest weakness is our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us Krishna loves us as we are He certainly wants us to become better but even now He is there in our hearts He has not abandoned us. Sarvasya chaahum rudisannu nishtu.
And from here, He wants to guide us, He wants to help us to grow. So if we, through scripture, understand Krishna’s love for us, even among devotee association, some devotees may be very critical, some devotees may be more considerate and encouraging. So we have to see that I have to deal with my doubts.
And those people who have too many doubts, some people, they are too overconfident. And then you have to bring them down to the earth. So I don’t fly, so I have to be realistic.
Some people actually stay underground only. You have to get them out. Don’t be so doubtful, do things.
So depending on every situation, our individual situation, we have to find out what is our need. Do we need encouragement or do we need cautioning? And then, based on our need, we have to find out where we can get that need fulfilled. Then we will be able to overcome the self-doubts.
Okay? Any other questions? Yes. Mind has some default settings. Default, yeah.
Okay. So aren’t the default settings those which are suitable? Why do we need to change them? There are different things. There are instincts and there are impulses.
Instincts are desirable, even essential. Impulses are often undesirable and unhealthy. It’s like, say, if I touch this mic and I find there’s electric current over here, immediately my hand will move.
It’s not that I think about it, it’s instinctive. So there are, for our self-protection, the body has certain instincts programmed within it, which help us protect ourselves. This is a programming that is healthy.
That’s the default setting, which is not faulty. It’s good. But along with that, there are impulses which come up.
So when I feel hunger, I eat food. That hunger, sensation of hunger is good, because that will make me eat. At the same time, sometimes when I get the urge to eat, it is not necessarily coming from the body.
It’s often coming from the mind. There’s biological hunger and there’s psychological hunger. Or we can call it pseudo-hunger.
Pseudo-hunger is when we are hungry, basically we need food. But when there is psychological hunger, we want a specific kind of food. I cannot say, you know, I am hungry for pizza.
Okay, I may say I have a desire for pizza. And it’s not that it’s wrong to eat pizza. The point I’m making is not against a particular food.
I’m just saying that if I’m hungry, if there’s a biological need, whatever food is there, it will satisfy. If it is a specific, selective, obsessive desire, then quite likely it is coming from the mind, not from the body. So when the impulses come up, quite often, when people are impulsive, eat little and eat more and keep eating more.
So instincts are healthy. Impulses are often unhealthy. Because when we are eating, keep eating, keep eating, keep eating, little more, little more, little more.
The body is saying enough, no, I want more. So then, it’s not that all programming is bad. Some programming is good also.
But some programming is bad. So that default programming which is faulty, that we need to correct. Does that answer your question? Is there something else in your mind? Good question.
If God has made us, if God has made us and he wanted us to be a particular way, if he wanted us to be pure, then why is our nature presently impure? Yes. Krishna made the mind. We made our mind.
What does that mean? The mind is like a software which is blank. The computer company gave us software. But based on how we use it, certain settings come in it.
So we have been going through many lifetimes. And over many lifetimes, we have acquired certain tendencies. So that’s one point of it.
I can explain why different tendencies come within us. The other way to understand it is that this world is a place for testing, for purification. It’s about selection.
So I was in Melbourne and then one student asked this question. If God wanted us to be good, why are the bad choices often so much more than the good choices? There are so many bad things to do. There are so few good things to do.
That’s how always it is in any multiple-choice exam. Four wrong choices, one right choice. The purpose of the wrong option in the multiple-choice exam is not to mislead us or to fail us.
The purpose is to test whether we have internalized what we have learned. Similarly, if we use our intelligence and then turn towards scripture, एमं बुद्धे परंबुद्धा संस्तं प्यानत्मान्मात्मण जहिषत्रं महा बाहो कामरुपं दुरासतं and situate ourselves spiritually through the practice of bhakti, then we can go beyond… we can reject all our desires. We can select wisely.
Is there something more in mind? Yes. Okay. If somebody is, say, from birth very shameless or very self-centered, concerned only about food, and neglects good instructions they are given, what is that kind of person? We all have particular natures from our past, and if that is the nature a person has, then we have to guide them or help them where they are at.
That means, that if you consider a staircase, I’ll be on the 50th stair in the staircase. Somebody will be on the 1st stair. 1st step, 50th step, 1st step.
So from the 1st step to move to the 50th step will take time. So if they are at that level, from that level they can take one step forward. It will be difficult for them to give up that self-centeredness entirely.
But if they just understand, you know, it’s not the best thing to do. It’s not the way to act. So basically, what we have to do is that they have some circle of interest.
They have a certain conception of life. We have to find out within their conception of life, how can we put in something that will cause the expansion. So it may be, if they just like to eat, try to give them prasadam.
If they just like to watch things, then try to give them something spiritual to watch. They have to be creative in that. And it may not be very easy for some people to expand their consciousness a lot.
But even a little expansion is also possible. So just try to find out, if this is the circle of interest, how can I bring Krishna into their circle of interest. Not just Krishna directly, but any aspect of Krishna.
Get that in and start the expansion from there. Are the current scientific models compatible with Shastra? Yeah, are the current scientific models, universal standard theory or other theories, quantum physics, are they compatible, congruent with Shastra? Are they different? Shastra gives us knowledge from a different perspective. The purpose of scripture is not to give us material knowledge.
Material knowledge may be there in scripture, but that is not its purpose. Just like when Parikshit Maharaj is about to die, at that time, the purpose of scripture is not to give him exhaustive knowledge about the universe. So knowledge is given.
But the purpose is to help him to fix the mind on Krishna. So if we position science and scripture as competitors, by positioning science and scripture as competitors, we devalue scripture. Scripture is giving us the knowledge which science can’t give.
The knowledge of who I am, what is the ultimate purpose of life. And in scripture also there is material knowledge which is there. Now whether that material knowledge is applicable or relevant today or not, that will vary because universe itself has different ways of looking at it.
So there may be that for example in physics itself, there is quantum physics and there is relativity. And these two are significantly contradictory. In fact, Stephen Hawking said that they are just not reconciling.
In fact, he said that I am happy to announce that humanity’s quest for knowledge will never end. So the Guardian wrote that even he has given up. The point which he is making is that the universe is not reducible to any one model.
Shastra offers us some understanding of the universe. And Shastra also offers us different models. There is the Sankhya model of the universe.
There is the Mimamsa model of the universe. There is the Vaisheshika model of the universe. There is cosmology also.
There are different kinds of cosmologies described, even in scripture. So we don’t have to get caught in technicalities. We understand that if we consider this as the total body of scripture knowledge, some knowledge, some small sector will agree with science, some small sector will disagree with science.
But the essence of scripture knowledge is that it is beyond science. So our focus is on that. That is what scripture’s special gift to us.
Scripture is not there to tell us how to fly a plane or how to measure the speed of the earth or whatever. That can be there in scripture. But that is not the purpose of scripture.
So we have to keep the purpose very clear in our mind. Then we can avoid a lot of unnecessary tension and conflict. When there was this conflict between science and religion, Galileo said that science tells us how the heavens go, scriptures tell us how to go to the heavens.
How the heavens go means how the celestial objects move. Science tells us that. But how to go to the higher planets, that scripture tells us that.
When you go to the heavens, it is not just a physical locomotion, it is an elevation of consciousness. So again, any kind of statements like this are often oversimplifications. The important point is that we understand that both science and scripture have their domains.
And the domain is primarily determined by their purpose. There will be some areas where there is congruency, there is some area where there is conflict, and these have to be specifically resolved. But the most important thing is we understand the purpose of everything.
Science gives us certain knowledge by which we can operate the world around us. We can function in the world. But the ultimate purpose of the functioning, that knowledge is given through scripture.
Okay? Thank you. So… One last question, does anyone have? Okay. Okay, we’ll go.
Who has not asked till now any questions? Yeah. Yeah. So atheists say that with death everything is finished.
And as long as we live, till that time we have this longing for love. So apart from reincarnation, is there any other explanation? No, reincarnation is not an explanation. What we are talking about here is reincarnation can be an explanation for certain things.
Such as why certain people remember past lives. Or we can look at it as a philosophical explanation for what is the purpose of life. But when we are looking at our own desires itself, Okay, we may say that as long as we live we have desires.
It’s fine. But why do we have desires? And why do we have a desire that is non-circumstantial? That is the key thing. It’s out of place.
It’s say, if I have never been to Somalia, to Africa, anywhere. I have never met a Somalian. Somalian person.
And if I start speaking Swahili. How do you know Swahili? Question will actually come, isn’t it? So we are not talking about desire-versing. We are talking about a specific kind of desire.
And the desire to live forever, to resist death. When the theory of evolution is based on the idea of survival of the fittest. Only the fittest will survive.
But that doesn’t explain the question why do we want to survive? And not just survive, but survive forever. No living being wants to die. Even people who commit suicide, it’s not that they want to die.
It’s that they feel that the condition of living is a greater greater state of suffering than the condition of dying. They don’t know what dying is. They think dying is non-existence.
But even at that time, it is basically the longing for joy which is expressed perversely as the longing to minimize suffering. So the basic desire for eternal, enduring existence, the basic desire for joyful existence, that itself is something which has no explanation. Where does consciousness itself come from? It has no explanation.
The only explanation is that it has to come from something non-material. So yes, at the level of the body, if the body is damaged or destroyed, we may not express our desires. But even when the body is functioning right now, where are my desires coming from? If consciousness is simply the certain stimulation of electrochemical signals in the brain, circuitry, then electricity going through the brain causes desire, but electricity going through this mic or my computer doesn’t cause any desires.
Why is that? Consciousness is something which is fundamentally different. That is what requires an explanation. Did I answer your question? Okay, one last question.
What is the nature of consciousness? What is the nature of consciousness? Is it explained in scripture in full detail? It depends on what we mean by full detail. Consciousness refers basically to the capacity for awareness. And that is of different categories.
In 13.33 and 34, Krishna used two metaphors to explain how the consciousness functions. Just like the sky is present everywhere, the sky pervades everything, but it is different from everything. That means when a plane is moving through the sky, it is moving through the sky, but the sky doesn’t get broken because of that.
The sky just keeps existing. So like that, consciousness pervades everything. And the second example is the sun illuminates the whole universe.
Similarly, consciousness illuminates the body. So the first metaphor is for pervasion, the second metaphor is for activation. The sun activates life on the earth.
Photosynthesis and everything else happens. So similarly, the soul is different from the body and consciousness is the energy of the soul. So, there is chit and there is chitta.
Chit is the consciousness of the whole. It is a faculty. Sat, chit, ananda, chit.
Chitta is the embodied consciousness. So based on the kind of body the soul goes into, its consciousness gets affected accordingly. So if I am in a human body, the soul will speak like a human.
The soul is in a dog’s body, the soul will speak like a dog, or not speak necessarily, bark like a dog. The whole point is that there is consciousness which exists in its self-existential transcendental glory, where there is pure perception and there is pure joy through that perception. In the pure stage the consciousness perceives Krishna and delights in Krishna.
But in the conditioned stage the consciousness does not perceive Krishna because the consciousness is contaminated. Then what it perceives and what it desires, all that is determined by the conditioning. So we want to move from the impure consciousness towards the pure consciousness.
Sankhya is a subject of analysis of the world. It’s one of the six systems of knowledge. Therein consciousness is described much more in detail.
The third canto chapters 27 to 32 are where you can study more about consciousness. Thank you very much. Let us