How Vedic wisdom can be empirically demonstrated. The Monk’s Podcast 148 with Lila Purushottam Prabhu

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Humble obeisances. Hopefully we will have some fruitful discussion. I am looking forward to it.
One of the things that attracted me to Krishna Consciousness was a scientific presentation. I had read the Bhaktivedanta Institute’s origin magazine and a few other publications and then I always looked up to and appreciated devotees who presented Krishna Consciousness in a rational scientific way and it does seem that there are not many working in actively in the field of science and spirituality. So I do something but I’m not a, I was more of an engineer with an active interest in science than a hardcore scientist and I have studied broadly the field of science and spirituality but you are among the few people who have actually in one sense blended both these fields.
You have a scientific degree and you have also active spiritual, not only spiritual practise but spiritual outreach. So it’s a privilege to have your association today and I thought we could discuss on the topic of Bhagwat Sankhya and science if that’s okay with you. Yeah, yeah, sure.
It has been a great journey. I would say since I met my teacher who taught me Bhagavad Gita in 1993, I would say this is almost like 28 years of beautiful journey. Okay.
So how did you first, were you interested in science as say or was it more of a profession or was it also something of a vocation or a hobby for you and what was exactly a scientific background? Can you share for our reader, for our viewers? You see that, okay, it’s a very good question actually. You see that we were born when TV was not there. Okay.
And we were born and brought up in the nature’s lab. And naturally, you know, there was no, you know, no so-called motivated drive for us to do something. Whatever we did, it came out naturally.
That’s what I see in my life. It’s not somebody told me, you do this, then I have to do this, you do this, you have to do this. So you’re saying that the TV creates many artificial desires out of experience? Obviously.
That’s what I see because nowadays, information explosion is so much, people have very little time to think about themselves, what, in what way they can become happy, what way, you know, they would become naturally situated. So these are the things that are no more there, at least in Indian scenario now, because I am literally travelling literally every part of India, and I’ve seen how people have completely, you know, gone astray from their own nature. So you’re saying that because there was no television, so if you took up science, it was because you were actually interested in science? Yeah, because you see that my childhood and school days were filled with activities that I liked most.
And although I liked mathematics maximum, but I was a naturally voracious reader, I read literally all books in my library, and those days in my school days. So when by mistake, I entered into engineering, but at the end of four years of my engineering at REC Roorkeela, I realised an emptiness within me, I realised that something is missing. And hence, even if I had jobs here to go, there to go, here to go, but I still continued my journey, because at some point of time, I realised what makes me happy is that I’m a naturally a student, I like to learn.
Roughly, this was which year? When did you graduate? 1988, that is when I realised that I would learn, I would be happy by becoming a student. So, and your graduation was in which specific engineering? Yeah, in electrical engineering. Electric, okay.
So you still felt there’s something missing in your life? Yeah, you see that at some point of time in my graduating final years, I spent a lot of time among my friends. And once you feel that you have become now alone after the graduation, everybody has gone out, and you are alone. And I felt that I have cheated.
I felt that this was a waste of time. I spent so much time with them and they are not there. So this is a naturally a waste for me.
So that really occurred to me. And I realised that if I would have invested, because from my childhood, I was very philosophical. And in my intermediate science time also, I read many philosophical books.
I used to attend regular classes conducted on Aurobindo philosophy. That’s interesting. I’ve not seen many, say, Indian youth interested in specifically philosophy.
So was that? In my intermediate science, when I was studying in Preveza College, I was an avowed reader of J. Krishnamurthy book, book of Aurobindo. So, except probably the Vaishnava books, I didn’t touch. Upbringing was religious or how was it? The upbringing was not, because I was born in a very lower middle class family.
My father was a clerk in a government hospital, primary health centre. So obviously, my only spirituality is the spiritual tradition of Odisha, because I was born in Odisha. Yes.
So being born in Odisha, I used to hear regularly Jagannath Bhajan. And specifically during the Dussehra time, when the Ashtami would start, the hearing all Devi slokas in glorification of Mother Durga. So we used to get up early morning, take bath and open the All India Radio.
And then we hear all those slokas and you get really fresh. So it was, we are born of Odishan religious culture to say. Okay.
Yeah. So was this a broadly religious culture or was it a Vaishnava culture? No, it is an Odia culture, you know, we had Odia culture. It is, you know, we have a lot of fascination for Jagannath Rathyatra.
Visiting Jagannath temple in Puri was one of the, always used to be a fabulous time for all of us as a family, as an individual. So I would say I was born in an Odia religious culture, not a Vaishnava culture. Okay.
Yes. So you said in 93, you were introduced to Bhagavad Gita. Yeah.
How did that happen? You see that in 88, when I started searching for truth, you know, I started my life with Bhagavad Gita and Chandni Maharaj. So the Bhagavad Gita, I started reading because my father was always reading Bhagavad Gita. And somewhere probably that seat was there.
My father would never do anything without reading. After taking bath, he will read one chapter of Bhagavad Gita and then he will leave for his office. Oh, okay.
So Bhagavad Gita played a very important role in my life. So when 88, I simply went to a bookstall, purchased the Bhagavad Gita. And in REC Rohrgela, there used to be a Max Müller Bhavan, just two kilometres from REC Rohrgela.
Okay. So there used to be a lot of, you know, editions of Bhagavad Gita. I still remember, I used to get every week one Bhagavad Gita, I’ll pick up.
And I cannot understand ABC. The English was too tough and voluminous books. And, you know, it won’t make any sense because I was not good at English.
Now I’m able to speak in English. It’s all kudos to Srila Prabhupada. By reading his books, I understood how to speak in English.
But those days, you know, it was very tough for me to read those English Bhagavad Gitas. And they’re all impersonal commentaries and very hard, very hard. But fortunately, my association, one sanyasi lady monk, she handed over me a bhajan book.
So every day before I go to bed, I would read some of the selected bhajans. And one of them is Krishna Ki Madhuri. That was one of the very famous songs.
I had by hearted it. And at some point of time, while doing all this prayer, Hare Krishna Mahamantra came naturally. So I started reciting every day.
Of course, nobody told me that you have to chant in mala. But this became a part of life. You walk, you do anything.
So chanting Hare Krishna and Bhagavad Gita. And I led a life of ascetic from 88 to 93. Mostly eating salads, not talking to others, remaining within.
So this was all before you were introduced directly to Krishna Consciousness or ISKCON? Yeah, yeah. Correct. Oh, OK.
Right. Remarkable. So then which year were you actually introduced to ISKCON? You see, I finished my Masters again from REC Roorkeela and then I became an architecturer there.
And because of this spiritual bent of life brought me to a conclusion that I should not settle until I understand the purpose of life. So I shifted my base from Roorkeela to Delhi. So there I got admission in TSD and then there also I had such an illusion because I was thinking that scientists are the best people.
They are the only honest people. So this kind of and we had already seen that how politics those days were so mudslinging and so forth. And so obviously, when I came to IIT Delhi, I saw that, you know, there are professors because those days very few used to come for PhD.
Not many PhD students. So I saw also there is a kind of fight among the professors to get a PhD student. And so many other things were there.
So I had certain illusion about the scientists are the best and that once that illusion is gone, you felt again back home. I said, why did I come here? What to be done here? So this is where when I was and I joined one subpar mission that time. That was a NGO working for communal harmony.
In 1992, there was a Bawri Masjid demolition. So we were part of the effort to give protection to minorities. And we used to go to slums to teach slum students every Sunday.
So all those were part of life. But I was not feeling happy because every time you go to the slums, those children whom we taught last week, you won’t find them. They were hiding.
I said, why do force teaching on someone? They don’t like it. And then I met Professor P.V. Krishna at IIT Delhi. He joined IIT in 1992, December.
I joined IIT in August, 1991. So at one Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon, he gave a lecture in our hostel. And he was playing a Sadaputra Prabhu’s video, simulated Bawri.
And even I was not aware of this lecture. I had gone for this subpar mission work and returning. I was returning and I saw common room was filled.
So I entered. At the end of the lecture, he said that I’m taking Bhagavad Gita class in my house. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
So that started my journey. Oh, OK. So Karan, that’s wonderful.
So this was about 96 or when was this? 93. 93 itself, everything. You moved from Bihar to? 91 August, I moved to Delhi.
OK. OK. 88, 91, 93.
OK, right. And then, say, currently you have a wide variety of services. You are looking after the Vrindavan Gurukul.
You also are a faculty. So how did you decide to also get involved in scientific outreach per se? Are you specifically doing some scientific? Did you do some research in the area of science and spirituality? Or did you see that as a way of introducing people to spirituality? Or how is the science? When we came to spiritual life. For us, Sadapada Prabhu became the icon.
Yeah, he was a brilliant person. And Professor P.D. Krishnan, he used all his work in preaching. So we were a fan of Sadapada Prabhu.
But one of the thing in his style was that. Is that he most of the time. You know, found the limitation of the sciences.
And limitation of the science in addressing certain issues. Just like you started saying the origin. And in fact, the origin, I think that I must have read that origin.
At least dozens of times during my first two years. And so basically Sadapada Prabhu said that, OK, science is very good. But for certain things, it is very limited.
Whether it is the origin of life, origin of universe, science is a lot of it. So we, and in fact, within very few months, I decided I will leave my PhD and join in Vrindavan. That is what my mindset was.
But I continued my PhD because Professor P.D. Krishnan told that you must complete your PhD. So he completed. OK.
So your PhD was in which field? I did my PhD in artificial intelligence and robotics. OK, so now you seem to have given a lot of talks on Bhagwat Sankhya. So was that a particular area of interest you developed over time as we could say? No, you see that in the beginning, you know, we were, you know, we saw our teacher was preaching and he is able to use the scientific concept to divert our attention to Krishna.
That means he used science to get us attracted to Krishna. So we also followed the same thing because after I finished my PhD, I went to Pitsbulani. I preached there for four years.
So we have the same style. We make our slides based on Origin Magazine and go out and preach. Those days, you know that you make those slides.
So these are different way of presentation. In fact, I remember I used to go to Siri Pilani and present among all those big shots and they will shout at me. You are talking all junk.
And still I will be very passionate advocating what I’m saying is right. And during Pilani, Rasuraj Prabhu came to Pilani and gave a lecture. And there he told that we can also interpret scientific data.
See data cannot be wrong. Data has been collected. They are right.
But we can give interpretation to the data. So that led me to have a stint in BI from 1999 to 2000. So I saw another perspective and all kudos to Rasuraj Prabhu that he brought out the idea that we can also contribute to science.
And then I left for Germany. From Germany, I came to IIT Kanpur. Now I’m here last 20 years in IIT Kanpur.
Oh, okay. So is your direct field connected with science and spirituality? Or it is more of a science and spirituality, the area of research that you use is an area of study that you use for introducing people to spirituality? You see that what happened, you know, over these 20 years, I am in IIT Kanpur. One is that once you are in IIT, you have to continue doing research.
Stabilise yourself as a profession. Yes. That means you have to compete with your peers.
Yes. Number one. Number two is that you have to convert or not convert.
You have to preach to fellow students who are coming to IIT Kanpur. So these two really occupied because my house was a temple. So every day, five o’clock Mangalarthi and then chanting Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatam class.
And then everybody goes to their classes again in the evening, Bhagavad Gita class. And while doing that and maintaining professional life sucked all my energy. But what happened in the process is that I kind of gave a lot of time to Bhagavad Purpose.
And based on that, at some point of time, I realised that there is no matter the way the scientists are talking, everything is a form of consciousness. So that was first awakening. This happened to me in 2008 or 2009 when I was in Zurich as a visiting professor.
And slowly, slowly, I realised that some of the limiting point from my perspective, using my own field of research AI, that where science has made the dead end. Science has? Made the dead end. Okay.
That means it is not able to progress further. Okay, right. So these are some and then, you know, you already know that I took interest in Gurukul because of my interest to set up a university.
In 2011, I had given a white paper to GBC body in Mayapur that we must have an ISKCON operated university. And these are the goal why we should set up an university. And, of course, once you think of setting up a university, you must have an agenda.
Because I cannot set up an university, all universities, because there are so many universities already there. What extra or new that we can offer to people? So you have to create an agenda, research agenda. Okay.
So this, because we got involved with the Gurukul since 2010. So it’s a long 11 years and there is a lot of brainstorming within me with my students about what should be the agenda if we have to set up a university. Yeah.
Hmm. Yes, for you. Thank you.
So in one sense, you could say that science is one aspect of your multifaceted services. You are cultivating students, you are to direct devotional programmes, and you are also creating a vision for a Krishna conscious university. And also because you have scientific background, scientific interests.
So you also use that to present Krishna conscious scientifically whenever there are any forums. So we have that opportunity. So maybe we can focus on, you mentioned that you got some insights from your study in artificial intelligence.
So currently, with respect to science, there are two distinct, you could say almost two areas, that with respect to applied science in terms of technology, we are having dazzling, even mind boggling progress in terms of how gadgets are improving, how AI, even AI is improving significantly. At the same time, in terms of conceptual understanding, it does seem that science is meeting some kind of, if not a dead end, at least a wall, which it doesn’t know how to go beyond. There are scientists who have written books like the end of physics, or even the end of science.
There are scientists, their science opposite from certainty to uncertainty. However, the foundations of science are becoming unclear, because say the contradictions between quantum physics and relativity, they are not so easy to resolve. In fact, people don’t even have, most scientists say that we don’t even have an idea how they could be resolved.
So from the point of view of theoretical understanding of the nature of reality, it does seem that science is meeting a brick wall, if not a dead end. Whereas most people, because technology is advancing so much, they may not even come to know that in terms of theoretical aspects, science is not progressing that much. So what are the areas you feel that science doesn’t provide answers and that is the area where say our spiritual texts can provide some answers? You see that, what is science? Science and the Sankhya, there is no distinction.
The atheistic Sankhya that is very popular in Indian tradition and current science, there is no difference. It’s basically the nature is the cause of everything. So whether you study the current science or Sankhya philosophy, because onus doesn’t lie with anyone, it’s all due to nature.
So nobody takes the responsibility. Suppose you build a hospital or you steal or rob a bank, no distinction. Both are happening by the laws of nature.
Okay, you steal or you save a life. So these are all laws of nature. This is the current science, you see, what science is doing? Science is finally analysing the experience.
Finally, everything is all about experience. And the irony is that we don’t understand how in human cognition experience takes place. How does experience take place within human cognition? This itself is an unsolved problem within science.
I think this is your reference to the hard problem of consciousness. Yeah, yes, yes. And plus, yes, you are right, is the hard problem of consciousness.
And plus, there is no idea of experiences in science. Yes. And that’s true also in Sankhya philosophy.
And this is where Bhagavad Sankhya is different from both science and Sankhya. Okay. So in Bhagavad Sankhya, you have an experience and there is experience.
So the science and Bhagavad Sankhya, they try to answer the same question. The question is, what is the building block, basic building block of the universe? Science tries to understand, Sankhya philosophy tries to give the answer. And the answer is also there in Bhagavad Sankhya.
Okay. But the approach is completely different. The approach in both Sankhya and science is a reductionist, whereas Bhagavad Sankhya is holistic.
So this is a clear distinction between these two approaches. Okay. So, you know, this is a key point about reductionistic and holistic approaches.
And I have read quite a bit on this subject. There are atheistic scientists, or you could say scientists in general, they acknowledge that science is reductionistic. But they say this is a reductionistic approach, which actually helps us differentiate science from pseudoscience.
So the example that often is given is that, say, when the Black Plague was spreading across Europe, at that time, many people thought this Black Plague is being caused by certain evil spirits, by certain such paranormal agents. And if scientists had stayed open to this idea, scientists had believed in or accepted such things, we would never have found about germs. We never found out how to cure those diseases.
So they say that their argument, and I have my response to their arguments also, but I’ll just rephrase it over here, that science is not necessarily metaphysically reductionistic. But methodologically, we are naturalistic. That natural phenomena should be explained in natural terms.
And to the extent we explain them in natural terms, to that extent, we can understand those phenomena, we can research those phenomena, and we can utilise those phenomena. So, for example, Newton believed in God. And yet, when he saw the apple falling, Newton, what made the apple fall? He didn’t think God made it fall.
If he had said God made it fall, then he would never have discovered gravity. So, for science, it is the study of matter and the interactions of matter and the principles by which those interactions happen that is important. And so the argument often is that as soon as science goes beyond the reductionistic framework, it leads to a whole Pandora’s box of invoking all kinds of paranormal supernatural agents, and it becomes a science stopper.
If Newton had been satisfied with the expression, God causes the fruit to fall, you would have no gravity, you would have no physics, you would have no scientific advancement. So, how would you respond to this? Yeah, very, you know, see, I am, I’m not here, I’m not really interested in finding fault with the approach of the science. Okay.
You see that what Prabhupada said, and in particularly, Easy Journey to Other Planets, Prabhupada’s point was that science has given us a process by which we do not take the natural world around us, the face value. We look for the subtle cause within the nature that makes us feel the nature of the waves. Like, for example, we watch a wall, according to Boltzmann, he didn’t see the wall, he saw molecules are dancing.
Yes. So, this idea of looking at the subtle picture of the world around is something that science must be credited. So, you made a very striking point that our purpose is not to find fault with science.
And then the second point you made was that science needs to be credited for, in a sense, going beyond Pratyaksha Pramana. Yes. To look beyond.
Prabhupada said that science must be given credit for finding the subtle cause of, so Prabhupada said that, so Prabhupada said science must be given credit for finding out or giving us a way how to find out the subtle cause of the natural world, the way it is manifesting around us. That’s remarkable. At least I have not seen this in Life Comes From Life or many of them.
It is there, I can give you also. That makes sense. It makes sense, yeah.
You see that, and because of that science made progress because they could unravel the subtle mystery behind the physical nature. And that is the success of the science and they must be given credit for what they have done. But still Prabhupada is saying the subtler than what they have achieved is even mind.
Subtler than mind is intelligence. Subtler than intelligence is the false ego. And soul is the subtlest.
So, in a sense, we should co-exist in harmonious way because we are looking for the subtle cause. Okay. So if we can show them how these subtler aspects of the truth are hidden in the nature, so both sides would accept.
So that was the take of Srila Prabhupada. I’ll just give you a little idea. You see that how science started with the subtler cause.
Simply according to the basic building block of the universe. So they, in the beginning, they told us that the periodic elements are the basic building block of the universe. Yes.
Right? That all of us, hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, potassium, sodium, these are all basic ones. They were always existing. Right? They are the elemental part.
And then they realised that these are white lies. These are? And white lies. White lies.
Okay. That means they are not the fundamental particles. Yeah.
They themselves recognise. And this is one of the aspects of science. It has a self-correcting mechanism.
When they find there is a limitation, they say these are David Tang. Professor David Tang, in his keynote lecture, he says that when we were teaching our students that the predictable elements are elementary particles, we are in fact telling them white lies. So it is the scientists, they themselves.
You can look at Professor David Tang’s lecture. And then, you know, they suddenly found out, you know, it is not the elementary particle. Predictable elements are not elementary particles, but an electron and two quarks.
In the beginning, they said neutron and proton. And then that got converted to two quarks because of the refined theory, refined idea. And then suddenly they say the basic building block of the universe is electron and two quarks.
And they realise again, this is also not true. And then they refined that idea. And now they are saying it is quantum free.
Okay. This is the standard model of the particle. Okay.
That’s true. That this is what it is, right? Yes. Now, if you look at what Bhagavad Sankhya says.
Bhagavad Sankhya says, what is the basic building of this universe? This is the famous verse. So basic building block of the universe, according to Bhagavad Sankhya, is that which is eternal, which is independent, and which has the capability to diversify. One becomes many.
So in a sense, Bhagavad Sankhya, basic building block of the universe is the absolute truth himself. So this you cannot bring in within the empirical science. Okay.
Yes. You see that? So Bhagavad Sankhya, the basic building block of the universe is the absolute truth. It’s Krishna everywhere, right? That’s what we learn.
And in Bhagavad Sankhya, in Kallad Kapila’s teaching, you see, he is present within as super soul, as time outside. There is nothing else. The cause of the entire everything that is happening are the two cause.
Same Krishna, one in the form of super soul, the other is in the form of time. So these are the things that you cannot bring in directly within the empirical science. So we have the answer, but we cannot bring them to the fold of empirical science.
This is the bottom. Oh, so then you’re saying that the science have to be expanded beyond the empirical domain or how do we go ahead? No, see, science as of now is within empirical domain. Science has to be within empirical domain.
Otherwise, as you told in the beginning, that people would say supernatural thing, all kind of superstition would come. So science is a beautiful creation by the arrangement of the time or the providence where it must remain within the empirical domain. As of now, I don’t see any alternative.
So then basically what we will need to do is that explain to people how the empirical domain does not give a satisfactory experience of satisfactory explanation of reality in its completeness and how life has aspects beyond the empirical. And in that sense, not point out the faults of the scientific method, but explain that holistic life needs to have more than the scientific approach to understanding reality. Would that be something? Yeah, you are right.
Plus, we can do a lot of positive contribution within empiricism. Oh, is it? How would that be? I will just, first I will start with a simple research that all of us we can do. I have not done it.
We did a research, but we have not published it. This is a simple when we got our Gurukul land. This Gurukul land was a salty land because we are looking for a bigger piece of land.
When we were searching for a bigger piece of land in Vrindavan, it was very difficult to find the contiguous land, 100 acres. So we found a land, we purchased it, but it was alkaline. And the whole objective that for which I took the land because I wanted to establish a holistic lifestyle.
We’ll have our own goshala. We will grow our own food. You know, students will be taught how to live in the lap of nature, experience varieties of life, understand the symbiosis that is existing and how we are connected to each other.
So when you look at that, you know, it was a bizarre situation for us to be in because we took a place and that cannot grow anything. In fact, even certain devotee district agriculture officers, they came and they said, you know, you can’t do anything. Apply urea, apply this and that.
I said, no, I cannot apply urea. It’s all conservationist. They came and they said, no, you know, you are cheated.
You can’t do anything. Okay. But from the same land, now we are growing enough wheat, enough rice, enough vegetable, everything.
So we did an experiment, actually. Then in IIT Kanpur, it’s my one of my students. I took two plot of land.
In one plot of land, we added jiva amruta. Jiva amruta is a composition of cow urine, cow dung, soil, jaggery, by which the microbes residing within the cow dung can multiply into millions, into billions, or even trillions in 72 hours. So when you apply these, sprinkle this liquid in the soil and anchor the soil with some, some, you know, some kind of ganja amruta, which we call the dried cow dung.
Then automatically soil becomes livable. Because when the microbe, they go, they have to survive. So they make this soil livable.
And our research actually proved very wonderful thing because we, you know, we, you know, you can all visit our gurukul and you will see that we don’t apply any synthetic thing, no pesticide, nothing. We grow everything natural and everything very tasty, right? But I wanted to do a research. So one of my students, what he did, he took a two plot.
In one plot, he applied the, this cow jiva amruta and the other he didn’t apply anything. And then the corn, bakka, corn seeds were sowed there. And we saw the rate of growth is twice when we applied the, the jiva amruta.
Okay. So now jiva amruta is, is it a Ayurvedic product or is it, what is it exactly? Jiva amruta means you take one kg of cow dung and add there the cow urine. And then this is a, this is a formula by Subhash Palekar.
Okay. So I’m just trying to understand the context. This is remarkable.
But what you’re trying to say is that drawing broader, drawing insights from the broader Vedic tradition, we can contribute even to the area of empirical science. Right. This is your example.
Exactly, exactly. Okay. So what, what, what is happening? This formula of jiva amruta is, is that you have microbes in the cow dung.
And it turns out to be these microbes are soil friendly microbes. Okay. When they go and live in the soil, soil becomes naturally porous, lighter.
Oh, okay. Okay. So, so what happens that when I did this experiment, I added this jiva amruta.
This jiva amruta has a certain formula. I don’t have exact number now. But it’s like, you know, you take 10 litres of, you know, cow urine.
Cow urine is a natural antiseptic. What it does is that it won’t allow external microbes to enter into the system. So this is cow urine.
Okay. And cow dung has a natural microbe. And you have to create a very, you know, favourable environment for this microbe to grow.
So what do we do? We add some water, a lot of water, almost 100 litres of water. And there we add some jaggery and chennai powder. Okay.
So by this process, what happens, these microbes, they grow into billions in 72 hours. Okay. So every 15 days, you just go and sprinkle this.
So what is the current scientific understanding? Current scientific understanding is soil is fertile. If it’s sulphur content is this much, nitrogen content is this much, phosphorus content is this much, calcium content is this much. These are the current understanding of fertile soil.
Subtle point is that we had two plots. In one plot, we added this jiva amruta. The other plot we didn’t add.
Right. Okay. Now we are demonstrating empirically that where we applied the jiva amruta, the plants grew in thrice rate.
Okay. So that is empirical evidence. What science says, science says that if the soil is fertile, growth rate will be better.
That is. And what is the basis of growth rate according to science? Soil composition, if you look at the calcium content, nitrogen content, this should be more. Now what we did is that we took the samples of both the plot before sowing the seed.
And after we added jiva amruta and we saw how the plants are growing in one and the other. So when we took this soil samples, we saw. That soil composition is as it is.
In both the fields. Oh. Both the fields soil composition are the same.
Oh, okay. Soil composition has not changed. My God.
So what is the explanation? This is what I am trying to say. And this, this really requires a science, scientific investigation. It remains because, you know, I’m so busy in other things.
But once this, we are, you know, in Gurukula, we are going to start some new department to do this research and see what is, I know the answer. The answer is that soil is now livable. The fertility, livable.
Livable means alive? Yeah. Livable means the microbes and earthworm. If they are able to live, then that soil is fertile.
Okay. Livable. Okay.
Okay. So this is, this is the conclusion, but this has to be established. So this cannot be established, you know, so easily because this will bring in the notion of science of relationship, right? The, the microbe and soil, they have a relationship.
These, these, these are all very, very scientific core concepts that have been brought in through rigorous scientific experiment. And so this is, this is, this is just one thing, you know, we are able to show that the, the so-called idea of soil fertility, it may be true in a relative sense, but that’s not absolute. We are showing here a case where the soil is, you know, at least if you go by empiric science, empiric science has no way to make an alkaline soil.
They cannot make it. We have made it fertile. And we have made it fertile using Vedic way.
Okay. Okay. So two questions here.
First question, when you say Vedic way, you’re saying that it is because it uses cow dung and other ingredients which are considered sacred in the Vedic tradition, because is this particular method mentioned in the Vedic scriptures, the Sanskrit words? Or is it, you’re talking about Vedic way in the sense of broad Vedic tradition? Yeah, it is known in Vedic literature, the cow dung has environmental friendly microbes, just like yoghurt has environmental, body friendly microbes. Okay. These, these are known, these are known in Ayurvedic medicines.
These are known things. Okay. So, so it may not be a specific phenomena that the specific transformation of say, dead soil into alkaline soil into livable soil that may not be mentioned, but the principle that there is eco-friendly, environment friendly ingredients are, what do you say, environmentally microbes in cow dung? Environmentally friendly microbes.
Okay. So, so you’re saying with all the scientific advancement that science, second question is, the other scientific advancement we have, like the aridification of soil is a big problem in today’s world because of various reasons, the soil becomes non- Yeah, yeah. This is the entire Punjab, Punjab phenomena.
The Punjab phenomena is that too much application of these so-called fertiliser based on sulphur content, nitrogen content, ammonia content, whatever, you know, the content, it has really destroyed the soil. So if I understand right, what you’re saying is this could potentially be a solution to huge problems. Exactly.
Okay. Exactly. And now just to take this point further, if I understand right, what you’re saying is that rather than trying to get science to expand its domain beyond the empirical, we look at whatever is there in the broad Vedic body, Vedic body of knowledge, and see how that can be demonstrated empirically.
And demonstrated empirically and bring out a new science. So, no, once you bring that out into science, so what will happen is that more people will develop appreciation, openness, and you can even say faith at some level in the Vedic body of knowledge. And not only Vedic body, because what it talks about, there is a holistic approach to do things.
Holistic approach to do things. I will give also two more examples, but here let me explain to you what is holistic approach. Okay.
You see that when we got this land in Gurukula, and everybody were criticising us, we were really under pressure because of the alkaline soil. And we have invested a lot of money. And so, wherever I used to go, I used to go to a different organic farm.
Once I went, I was teaching Bhagavad Gita in IIM Hindu as a credit course. And that time, there I visited an organic farm. One Mr. DK, a Maratha Brahmin, he was a, he has a, you know, organic farm there.
So, he welcomed me, said, Professor Swagatam, and he was holding a huge piece of soil. And told me what is the weight of this. Then, when I saw it’s a huge, I said, maybe 10-15 kilo.
He said, please hold it. So, so I tightened my muscles because I realised it’s 10-15 kilo. And when he handed over, I realised this is less than a kilo.
It’s so light. I asked him why it’s so light. He said that this has more than 10 to the power of 14 microns.
They have made this soil so porous, so light. It is naturally amenable for the growth of the plant. Because plant takes the breather, a plant breathes through its root.
The soil is naturally porous, plant will naturally grow. And then, I, he said, I saw in one of the corner of his thing, some people are spraying something. So, I asked him, you are an organic farmer.
And that’s why I came to you with advice. But I feel that you are sprinting some pesticide there. So, he smiled at me and said, please go and look at it.
So, when I went there and I asked those farmers what are doing here. I looked at their Arar plant. You know Arar Dal? Arar Dal.
So, these are all Arar plants. And they’re sprinkling something. I asked, what are you sprinkling? They said, jaggery water.
I was surprised why you are sprinkling jaggery water. Then they said, this is a pollination time. If I sprinkle jaggery water, it will invite the bees.
So, when bees would come, they would increase the pollination. The yield would be more. You see that how brilliant idea of this holistic cycle.
You have microbes that is coming from cow dung. They are helping the plants to, sorry, the soil to be livable and porous. Plants grow.
Then you have bees. They’re helping pollination. And there are the farmers.
They see there is a friendship. There is a cycle of relationship between all these things. And you have to live with that.
Instead of using pesticide and so-called the current idea of fertility. You kill all these things. Now our soil don’t have microbes.
Our soil don’t have earthworms. And because they are not there, bees are also not there. So, there is a break in the equilibrium.
Of these 84 life cycles. 84 lakh life cycles. So, this is what is the problem of the modern science.
So, this is what I was telling you. What is the holistic science here? Is that? Let me re-articulate this. What you’re saying is that there are natural ways of also doing pollination.
So, where we could use jaggery water and get the appropriate insects, birds to come. And in that, there is the involvement of the various species within nature. And then that leads to a holistic approach.
Within modern science, the reductionist approach means that instead of involving nature, we try to replicate and create substances. Or we use chemicals or use other things. And in that sense, we look at only one part of, we want this soil to become fertile.
But in that process, what are the natural ways of doing it? We are not looking at that. We are destroying. We are destroying the environment.
We are destroying the environment. See, human life will be more meaningful when they can appreciate the reason for existence of 8.4 million life forms. Okay.
So, this is interesting. Now, overall, I have also observed that in the Western world, as well as in the mainstream academia, there is a significant shift from, even in this domain of spirituality and also the domain of science and spirituality, the focus is shifting more from, say, ontological dimension to application dimension. That means, whether something like a mind or a soul exists or not, that is not so much a matter of debate.
But mindfulness, meditation, do they help? And there are a lot of empirical evidences to demonstrate that. Do they seem to help people deal with the depression, deal with stress? So, similarly, what we are saying is, if I understand right, what you’re saying is that by focussing in the application domain, where we can demonstrate empirically the results. So, now, as a way of explaining those empirical results, then we can provide a holistic model.
So, the model itself may not be directly empirically provable. But the results of that empirical model, that model can be provable. And then eventually, as we take this backward, then you talked about the Bhagwat Sankhya.
The first principle is that there is one living, one supreme being who expands. So, that way, in one sense, we don’t try to prove the worldview, but we demonstrate the workability and not on the workability, but the feasibility, the value of that worldview. And then gradually, people become more open to that worldview.
Is that where you’re driving at overall? Yeah, yeah. Actually, you are right in many ways. Let me first address your first part of your question.
That mind-brain connection. Okay, that was just an example I was giving. But yeah, but that’s a very important point, because I want to address that point, because I’m on a mindfulness.
You see that, what is the current science talking about? Current science is talking about what is mind? Brain in action. Brain in action. That is mind.
Brain. Okay, brain in action. Brain in action, right.
Okay, yes. Brain in action is what is mind. Right.
Yes, yes. And can I study mind using empiricism as of now? No, not at all. In fact, I can’t study because mind is so subtle that I don’t have, you know, you can measure the mind becoming subtler than the mind.
If you really want to do empiricism with the mind, then you have to be subtler than the mind, and which yogis could do it. And that is why they could have the siddhis, right. So that’s a completely different thing.
That is that what we are not recommending. So how can we study mind as subtler than the brain? This is very important. Hmm.
And we can study, because I will just explain to you two of our experiments. Recently, we have published these papers. One is in scientific reports, where we are demonstrating the efficacy of ragadharwari.
How? Ragadharwari. You know, raga, classical music. Okay, right, right, right, right.
Yes. So raga, ragadharwari. Have you heard about darwari? Yes, yes, yes, yes.
I think there is a devotee from IIT, Shyam Murari. Yeah, Shyam Murari. Yeah, I mean, I know him quite well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. He told me about it.
It was quite well-received. It was published in extreme pop papers also. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so what is that result? That result is, you see, your brain has different parts, right? Whether it is parietal, occupital, frontal. And what was seen when we have sangha, means we are always associated with something or other. We are never neutral.
And because of that, and mostly, we are supposed to have satsangha, but we don’t have satsangha. We have asatsangha. And the reason of that, you know, there is a lot of noise in the brain.
They have crosstalk. Because of crosstalking, you do not digest or internalise the meaningful information. So what happened using Ragdharwari, when you apply the Ragdharwari, administer Ragdharwari to subjects, immediately these channels of crosstalking, they break.
Channels? They break. Which channels? The channel of crosstalking. Oh, that means.
Okay, okay, crosstalk. Crosstalk. That means your parietal lobe is talking to frontal lobe.
Frontal lobe is talking to occupital lobe. So like that, each part of the brain is talking to each other when you are in asatsangha, right? You know, in Krishna conscious term, I am telling. I cannot tell this using scientific language.
And Ragdharwari, what we are talking, this is a mode of speech. Because of classical usage, right? Okay. So when you brought in mode of speech, then this crosstalking stopped.
Oh, and that is empirically demonstrable. Empirically demonstrable. And what we saw is that after that, you suppose you give a person to focus, he studies, memorises, then efficacy increases.
There is a cognitive enhancement. Oh, okay. That’s amazing.
And is this specifically for Ragdharwari only or? No, not any. Because even the western world. You cannot, you see.
Yeah, even the western world. You just do one. The western world also, there is music, like rock music and others may be very passionate.
But there also, you know, we have Mozart and Beethoven and others. Their music is also very calming. Right, anything in mode of goodness should work.
Anything that in mode of goodness should work. The other piece of work that we just submitted is the sleep quality, enhancement of sleep quality. Okay.
You see, normally, nowadays. These are very promising fields. Yeah, you huge potential.
In fact, they’d like not only a huge potential, they actually serve a very urgent human need. Right, right, right. You see that most of us are very fatigued, stressed out, depressed, you know, so many, you know, and hence, we don’t have good sleep.
When you don’t have a good sleep, obviously, how hard you may try your performance would be mediocre. And that is why you will see in Bhagavad Sankhya, one of the characteristic intelligence is sleep. Okay, even modern science says we must sleep.
Other the good sleep you get between nine o’clock in the night and three o’clock in the morning. Nine to three, that’s the best. So that is why any sleep therapist would say, suppose you want eight hours of sleep.
Nine to three is compulsory. You can add another two hours. This is six hours, two hours, you can add after or before.
This is, this is supported by modern science also? Modern science. This is modern science. This is modern science.
Yes, yes. I know Ayurveda talks about say, nine to three sleep is much better than 12 to six. But I didn’t know.
This is modern, modern, modern science. Oh, okay. How, how, how, how, how you get it? It is simple.
We get easy signal. Okay. And in easy signal, we look at different waves.
Alpha wave, gamma wave, beta wave. There are different waves. Yes.
Right. So, and there are different huts, right? Okay. Different frequency, right? So, the lowest frequency means you have a better sleep.
Okay, yes. So, so what has been demonstrated, if I understand is, when people sleep for nine to, nine to three, there, there’s, there EEG shows lower frequencies? Yes, obviously. Yes, yes.
Oh, okay. Yeah. So, you, you get a better sleep if you are regular between nine to three.
You get REM, non-REM sleep. And there are, of course, now I have forgotten those. I used to teach also these things.
As of now, I don’t remember. But the nine to three is the best. But the point is that nowadays people sleep always after 12.
Lifestyle has changed. They have a good sleep, bad sleep. And because of cumulative effort effect, cumulative effect, their sleep has degraded so much that they have insomnia, they have sleep apnea, and there are so many things.
A huge amount of problems, agreed. Huge amount of problems. So, what I, I have developed a Hare Krishna based cognitive behavioural therapy.
Where what I do, you know, we bring a batch of students. I make them to do little exercise. And then I play Prabhupada, that popular Hare Krishna tune and make them dance.
So, by that process, they get little tired, right? And then I put them in Savasana. Okay. So, after Savasana, I made them to relax.
By the time, because they have done some 10-15 minutes of exercise, literally most of them, they go to sleep. And, and I normally travel around wherever they are lying down and I could figure out who is sleeping, right? So, I will pat at their cheek to make them awake. And once they come, they become alert, I play Hare Krishna.
So, it’s soft tune and doesn’t matter whether they are believer, non-believer, doesn’t matter. Because now they have come out of the fatigue, little rest they got five minutes, whatever rest in Savasana, they got. That was sufficient for them now to be absorbed in Hare Krishna mantra, just soft.
And I make them listen for 15 minutes. And then they will get up and sit in mostly, you know, lotus posture or normal posture. But eyes closed.
Now I tell them you start singing. And they also happily sing. Nobody objects.
And then we take the sleep quality after they go to sleep. And then we make them sleep. And then we extract the sleep quality.
And we found that there is a, you know, a significant improvement in the sleep quality. Significantly. Oh, OK.
So, what is this? Has it also been published somewhere as such? I just submitted. I think a month back we submitted. We are looking for the feedback.
OK, some of the things here you see that this kind of research is new to us in the sense, you know, these are all psychological research. Psychological research means you have to have certain investigation parameters to be right. Yeah.
OK, so there is an experimental group. There is a control group. So these are the things we were not familiar.
Right now, we are getting familiar with it. And so it takes time. But once we start doing things, it will be faster.
So what I’m saying is that through this kind of research, we are able to show what is the importance of satsanga. By satsanga, you are using generically the sattva. Generically, yeah.
These are all, you know, it’s not only satsanga you listen to Bhagavad Gita. And this is because the more, what is satsanga? First, the first part of satsanga is mode of goodness. Yes, that is correct.
Yeah, in one sense, mode of goodness will be more easy to demonstrate than transcendence. Yeah. How would you actually demonstrate the effect of transcendence on the brain? Yeah, exactly.
Yes. All right. So this is fascinating.
Now, just let me try to, you, we were discussing about, so empirically, empirically demonstrating things. Now, when we do this, we could say that we are encouraging people to come more towards sattva. And then we are also providing them practises from within our own tradition, by which we can come to sattva.
Now, if people want, they may look for practises from their own tradition also. The point is, this doesn’t come off as sectarian. Yeah.
Because it is, in one sense, equipping people with resources for dealing with their problems. And so this seems to be a very rich area for research, isn’t it? Exactly. Yes.
Yeah. So let me just, we discussed two areas. One is environment and the other is, you could say, psychology.
And both of these are areas where people are looking for solutions. And in many ways, especially, I would say, as we are moving from modern to post-modern times, then modern times, there was a very strong opposition in one sense toward anything beyond science reductionistic model. But in the post-modern times, as we are moving towards, there is a greater amount of openness.
That it’s like the question is shifting from what is to what works. So in that sense, there is a big opportunity for us to utilise this. So have you? Yeah.
Yeah. You see, there is also other aspect. Other aspect is that, one is that we are showing the importance of importance of mode of goodness or satsanga to holistic development of our human creativity.
Right? Because this is this. But while doing this, we can also develop the science out of it, which we have not done. Like, as I told you, in the environmental case, that the soil composition in both the field was same.
But in one, due to the more microbes, the crop is growing at a faster rate. But the other is not growing. So we have not brought out the science of it.
Like the modern empirical science talks about soil fertility in terms of this much sulphur, this much calcium, this much nitrogen. We have to. So this science is necessary.
And it will take time. But sooner it will happen, provided we all come together. We realise that how we can bring out a science.
A holistic science. Okay. So wait a minute.
So what you’re saying is that even if we have empirically demonstrated certain results, we still have to, when you say we have to bring out the science means we have to provide a theoretical model. Model. Okay.
We have to give a model. So that. Like, for example.
Yeah. You see that this, particularly the science of relation that I’m talking about, I’m working of an idea of universal semantic space, universal semantic space. Okay.
So what is that universal semantic space is a unitary whole. Is the unitary whole. And that grows based on its association with other semantic elements.
Okay. Okay. So this is, this is some idea.
Of course, this is in which branch of science, the idea of universal semantic space. This is from. This is it.
You can say probably it is a cognitive science. This is a cognitive science. Cognitive science.
Okay. Because we are trying to explain. See, let me make it clear.
What, what, what is the distinction? Scientists studied only math. Yes, that is true. For them, matter, living matter, no distinction.
Okay. See, we have matter, then living matter, then pure consciousness. We have three levels.
In Bhagavad Samta, we have three levels. Matter, living matter, and then pure consciousness. Is there a category called living matter? I thought it’s Purusha and Prakriti.
So, what would be Sanskrit word for living matter? Living matter is, is the, is the, is the, is the body, is the, is the, is the combination of gross and subtle body. Where it is, you could say where there is a, where there is consciousness present in it. Consciousness.
Okay. So, you know, there is one, we talk about the six changes. Living matter means cognitive elements.
We can say like. Yeah. So, one way we talk about it often is that there are six changes that happen when there is a matter with consciousness or life.
Exactly. And otherwise. So, we can, we can, we can say one is matter without cognition, matter with cognition.
And then there is pure cognition, scientific knowledge. Oh, okay. So, what is missing here that we studied, we talked about only matter in one spectrum.
The other spectrum, spiritualists, they talked about only pure consciousness and the process, what we missed is this living matter. Oh, okay. And I personally believe is that this century will be study of this living matter.
That’s amazing. And there is a lot of exciting, at least promising research going on in, in say, we have making vaccines or we are making tissue, tissue culture, or even, even trying to make artificial life. So living matter is a big field of research right now.
Of course, the presumptions that science brings into it may be reductionistic, but still, again, the point is that there is, there is research going on over here. Yeah, the research is going on, but they do research. See in, in Ayurveda, you have a professor in Ames Delhi, Professor Jayasundari, Jayasundari, and she was telling that when you want to make an Ayurvedic medicine, you have to get, you have to select full moon night because the, you know, that the sun, moon sign is like medicine.
Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. What is that verse in 15th chapter? Right.
So you, you have to select the full moon night and then you have to offer certain prayer to that medicinal plant and then you have to take whatever you need to make your medicine. Right. So, so that is a process.
So it is not, you simply cut the plant and take it and think it is just out and out matter and you are making a medicine. Now, so, but what, now we have to demonstrate that living matter has to be treated differently, not like matter. Like for example, for Ayurveda, for allopathy, this body is a simple matter and allopathic medicines are simple poison.
Of course, you know, if you demonstrate it, then, then all those doctors will come and, and assault at me, but that is their approach. We have to accept it. They don’t, the no allopathic medicine is being designed based on cognitive elemental science, that this living matter is a cognitive element.
Every cell is also conscious. And not only that I am fully conscious, even every cell of my body is conscious. So this, these are, you know, profound ideas and these, these are all ideas from our Veda, right, Vedantic idea.
And so hence, having a perspective of Vedantic idea and then doing research on living matter. Would be the new way to take the science further within the empiricism. Oh, okay.
So now, broadly speaking, how much of it is really Bhagwat Sankhya? Because at one level, I mean, I appreciate the areas which you are just talking about discussing, they’re very important and we can make significant contributions. But so you’re talking about this threefold category used matter, living matter, and third was consciousness or it was? Pure consciousness. Or the other was you said, that matter without cognition, matter with cognition, and then pure cognition.
Pure cognition. Okay. So, so now, this matter with cognition, that, is it a, is it a conceptual category that we will be focussing on studying because of the interface with modern science? Because as I said, Purusha and Prakriti, we don’t really have this category of living matter.
So, so the point I’m making over here is that there is, let’s put it this way, there is a need in contemporary society for certain branches of knowledge, say like, how to, how to sleep better or how to live more eco-friendly. And then there is the broad Vedic body of wisdom from which we are drawing some things which address these needs. So, when we, when you said that, yes, we may show the empirical results, but still we have to show a model, we have to build a model.
So, what would the model look like? When you talk about the model, are we going to, in one sense, present the whole Bhagavad Sankhya model because that at one level is not really demonstrable. That, yeah, you see, what is the totality of Bhagavad Sankhya? Bhagavad Sankhya is that how the unmanifested material energy in the form of Pradhan became manifested Prakriti through or under the active direction of Supersoul and Time. This is exactly Bhagavad Sankhya.
Bhagavad Sankhya is talking about the evolution of categories, manifested categories from unmanifested equilibrium nature. Right? Okay. So, so this is actually cognitive element.
This matter is not the matter that science studies. Sorry, yes, this matter is not the matter science studies. This is cognitive matter.
So, in Bhagavad Sankhya, the elemental representation is that of cognitive matter. It is not the ignorant matter. Oh, okay.
So, that is a distinction. So, now, when you give the example of, say, Ayurvedic medicine being performed, made at a particular time, so are you saying then from that category, is there something like non-living matter at all? Because in one sense, the Atma is present. There is, there is, there is, you know, I won’t say, when I say living matter means, you know, to make people understand what is, you know, it’s not that matter is living.
When I said matter, I understand that point. Yeah, yeah, cognitive matter. Cognitive matter.
Basically, there is, there is, there is, some element of consciousness is present in that matter by which it behaves in somewhat different ways from normal. Because that is, that is the nature. The soul is everywhere.
So, even within the stone, soul is there. Within the sand, soul is there. That is Vedic view.
Okay. So, so now we could, that means you could, so if a particular medicine is prepared at a particular time, that means those, those cognitive elements that are present at that person at the time of full moon or something like that, so they are affected in a particular way. Yes.
And so that is why we have to treat them in a way they feel also graceful. That means when we offer prayer to a medicinal plant, we are begging for his grace. So, plant feels happy to part with its own body, which you can take.
That means when you cut the, you cut by force, plant is unhappy. So, in that cognitive element, already the impression of sadness is there. So, when you consume that, you won’t be happy.
But when a plant gracefully shares his body, then in that body, there is happiness. So, it is more nourishing to the body, to the human body. So, this is the psychology.
That’s amazing. And at one level, it makes such eminent sense. And as you know, humans are in one sense, in some ways, human consciousness is expanding.
There’s a lot of concern about animal rights nowadays, and how people are moving toward veganism because they see how much animals are being slaughtered. So, as devotees, when we present our food, we don’t just say it’s vegetarian food, we say it’s violence-free food. So, people are becoming aware of consciousness being present far beyond what mainstream Western society thought was the domain of consciousness.
So, that is anthropocentrism to some extent. So, this is amazing. So, Prabhu, do you have a team of devotees doing this research? Because this seems… Yeah, I’m creating, because you said that Gurukul, Parthivadanta Gurukul, we have a school now.
We are in the process of setting up two departments. Okay. See, always I thought that why should I build a university? There are so many universities.
Sorry, there are so many? There are already so many universities. Why should we build a university? Okay. What is the reason for building a university, right? So, that made me think that we should build a university that must be different from existing universities.
That means the existing universities are not able to contribute to the society in a specific way. Hopefully, we can do that. Particularly, as of now, currently, the psychic presence are increasing everywhere.
There are reasons. Psychic presence are increasing because mode of goodness is lesser, lesser, lesser. Let us face this fact.
Mode of goodness is reducing like anything. Hence, there is depression, there is stress, there are so many other psychic phenomena that is coming. I am hoping that this university, when we are talking about Vrindaranyam College and then Vrindaranyam University.
So, in college, we start with two departments. One is the School of Theology and Sanskrit Studies and the second is Cognitive Science. So, everything that we talk about can come, whatever we discuss and more than what we have not discussed can come under these two categories.
And that can be sub-branched later and we will take different departments in the future and we will make up or we will give a shape to a futuristic university. That is my hope. So, you are saying that Gurukul is, so from Gurukul to university, it will take at least two decades, isn’t it? One and a half, two decades? Obviously, obviously.
It’s a remarkably long-term vision. I think it’s required for having an impact in that area, a substantial impact. So, now, I mean, we could go on discussing a lot of subjects, but I want to respect your time also.
Two, three questions I would like to ask before we conclude. So, first is that if devotees or those who hear the podcast would like to know more about your research or would some, they would be interested in joining in this research or taking guidance for the research. Are there some places where they can contact you? Is there some website or some email or somewhere? Yeah, they can all write to me because my email ID is already there in my website, IIT Kanpur.
So, that is the best way to reach me. And particularly I, you know, we need more researchers, there is no doubt. But those who can do full-time research, they can come.
We will provide them space in Gurukul. And we have a lot of problems, many, many problems. And if they are ready to dedicate, then they can really enjoy their research.
And more important, Gurukul, beautiful ambience. Beautiful ambience, organic farming, Gaushala, you know, is far from the crowded Vrindavan, you know, its ambience is highly spiritual. So, people, it is very intoxicating for doing in-depth study.
Yes. So, is this, so do you have a formal institute for doing this kind of research or? Yeah, we are going to affiliate our college. First, we start with the college, Vrindavan College.
And this college will be affiliated soon. And we are hoping to launch by 2022. Oh, next year? 20? 22.
Oh, okay. That is remarkable. And currently, so you are also, so how is the receptivity for this kind of research in India itself? Do you get support and appreciation? Because in one sense, what you are doing doesn’t seem like you are promoting a particular religious group.
You are promoting universal values at one level. So, are you getting a good response in the? And I’m hoping, I’m hoping because you see, every, the society will have acceptance when you give a solution to their major problem. So, we are giving, you know, this particular university will be known for giving psychic treatment, psychic knowledge.
And this psychic knowledge is not only confined to human beings. When we talk about environment, we have to have a psychic knowledge about the plants, psychic knowledge about the animals, other 8.4 million different species. So, there is psychic character to everything.
And we have seen this. For my experience, I have seen plants, they grow very happily, nicely, the Hare Krishna man mantra is going on around them. And when, you know, recently we were in a water in IIT Kanpur, and there was a mango tree, it’s a very old tree.
And it’s about to die. But since we came to that house, and always there was chanting, kirtan, and this mango tree gave us a lot of fruits. And the day we left that quarter, next year, the plant died.
And similar experience I have in many places, wherever I have gone and left, you know, the impact on these things, and they need to be brought up, they need to be brought out in a scientific way, not in a dogmatic way. So, there is a lot of scope, because I will give you a simple example. Six months back, one European girl became very depressed, very depressed.
And one of my scientific colleagues from France, Paris, he is a little different than the so called scientist. He sent this girl to an organic farm, organic farm. And the girl got cured within two months, within two months.
So, yeah, these are not something new. But then you have to add some scientific values to these things, so that the young people can accept it. Yes.
You know, one of the things what you said about depression, there’s a lot of research into equine therapy. They can go into stables and take care of horses. Yeah.
And they do seem to heal quite a bit. I’ve been enquiring whether we can do something about bovine therapy also. Come and take care of cows.
Yes, we need to do that. We need to do that. And it is actually scientific.
To live among cows is highly scientific. You lead a very balanced, spiritual and holistic life. Makes sense.
So, in one sense, what Prabhupada at one level told us to chant Hare Krishna and that is a direct spiritual activity, direct devotional activities. But Prabhupada also was quite strong in talking about sattvic living. And if we can focus on demonstrating how sattvic living benefits the environment, benefits individuals, and especially we can demonstrate scientifically, there will be a, I see the potential is huge.
Huge. Yeah. Huge.
So, presently, when you are working in IIT Kanpur, so is that your area of work is different from your area of research, isn’t it? Now, because some of the students are working directly in these areas now. Okay. One of my PhD students, she is working on mantra-based cognitive therapy.
Directly. There are people, there are students who are working on different ragas, the effect of different ragas on the psychic cure. So, some problems we are doing.
Sleep therapy also we are working on. But now I want to, you know, set up a mind and brain laboratory in Gurukul. So, I don’t say brain and mind.
If you go to the all-western science, the lab is brain and mind, not mind and brain. Yeah, it’s okay. Because for them, brain is first, mind is next.
Whereas for us, because according to Bhagavad Sankhya, mind is the only element in the body which is in mode of business. So, when mind is subjected to ragas and tamas, you get depressed. So, and that is why people naturally feel happy when they are in sea beach or a natural scenic place, which are mode of goodness, because mind is naturally mode of goodness.
So, it is not something. Is there an empirical way? That was one of the questions I was going to ask. Are there any empirical parameters to demonstrate the three modes? Or how do we correlate that this is mode of goodness, this is mode of passion? Is it like an intuitive understanding? One thing you talked about is the brainwaves.
So, that characterises just like people slowly, slowly brought out the idea of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen. I’m pretty sure in 10-15 years, if a sufficient number of researchers, they come forward and work, they can create a biomarker for mode of goodness, biomarker for mode of ignorance, and biomarker for mode of passion. And in fact, see in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says everybody must work according to their nature.
Yes. We don’t understand what is our nature. So, if we have found out what are our biomarkers, then we can easily tell people what is your nature and do that particular work, which is according to nature.
So, that is again, will be helpful to set up a proper varnasana. Now, what is happening? We have varnasana, but this is polluted or distorted varnasana, because my nature is different, but I work in something else. Yes.
This is the core problem of the modern society, particularly in Indian society. In Indian society, whoever is born, they are told that you prepare for IIT-JEE. Yes, so true.
Completely being oblivious to what is that. So, now you have quoted Ayurveda quite often, how is the receptivity to Ayurveda in the mainstream scientific world? One way you can say is that you also pointed out that it’s big pharma and there is big money over there. So, then naturally the opposition of their monopoly is challenged.
But beyond that. I think, see, these issues would be there in the world all the time. Yeah.
But we should do whatever is right for the society. And by the potency of time, our time will come. Time for sattva will surely come one day.
Okay. Okay. And you must be knowing Brian Josephson.
Yes. Brian Josephson. The youngest Nobel laureate, I think.
He worked in, later he worked on Ayurveda. Oh, really? I didn’t know that. He was fascinated by Ayurveda.
I’m telling you what has happened in India is that India as a country didn’t recognise its own core values. India as a country, just like China, force money. Wherever it thinks that this is where we can establish ourselves.
India didn’t pour money into Sanskrit studies. India didn’t pour money into Ayurveda. It didn’t anchor.
It may be because we were not ready. That’s for sure. That’s why it didn’t happen.
Yeah, but I do think that things are changing, isn’t it? In the last few decades? Yeah, we see people start doing research and they demonstrate, you know, obviously, you see, in this age, everything will change according to people’s choice. It will not go by according to what pharma company, they may win for a decade or two, but they cannot win all the time. So if we offer something of value, people will take it.
Take it. And then that’s how we can actually change. Yes.
Yeah, in one sense, if you consider the whole rising of vegan, that was against the meat packing industry, but still it has risen. Right. Its own way.
Okay. Yeah. So, but going back to the question of Ayurveda, see, there are, we could say, homoeopathy Ayurveda and there are various other non-conventional or alternative forms of medicine.
Now, sometimes if we talk about differentiation between science and pseudoscience, often homoeopathy is given as an example of what is not considered scientific. Now, there are papers also which try to, homoeopaths try to prove that it is scientific. But so what I was asking is, how much is Ayurveda on the, is it on the cusp of acceptability or is it on the borderlines or is it becoming increasingly accepted? I don’t have an answer for this question because I’ve hardly worked in Ayurveda nor I have any.
So when you quoted Ayurveda, that was not so much because you’re talking about Ayurveda as a science, that is a knowledge resource you are drawing from so that we could have something which would demonstrate empirically. Yeah, see, how I got some idea about Ayurveda is that one of my students, he worked on Bhasma. Oh, okay.
In Ayurveda, Bhasmas are like, what is that called? Antibiotic. Antibiotic. Okay.
What is antibiotic? It has to work very fast. Oh. Right.
Suppose you have an inflammation, throat inflammation, you take antibiotics, right? Okay. So in Ayurveda, we actually, we have a patent on Laho Bhasma. We have a patent on Laho Bhasma.
So that is how we started actually. We wanted some targeted drug delivery. But the student got PhD and he’s now a faculty in one of the NITs.
But the idea was that, what is this Bhasma? All Ayurvedic Bhasma are made from poisonous substance. I’ll just give you the example of mercury. Okay.
So mercury is a poison. But mercury is mostly used for Ayurvedic Bhasma. The reason is, any poison that spreads in the body very fast.
So when you make the mercury as a medium of drug transfer in your body, then it works very fast. Okay. So this is the big science.
The only thing is that, what is why Ayurvedic Bhasma has not, you know, has not taken big leap. The reason is, this Bhasma production, they have so many layers. The traditional Bhasma preparation takes at least four months, sometimes six months.
You see in six months, the so-called allopathic fellows, they provided a vaccine to you. But here just Bhasma preparation takes you six months. Hmm.
So the Laha Bhasma that we made, we reduced that time, which was four months, to almost some hour or a day. Okay. So, so, so, so, of course, you know, you know, this can have, this can have a lot of research, you know, direction.
But, you know, I have not seen. No, no, I understand. I was just giving an example.
So I understand what you’re coming from. My question was not to get into technicalities here. What you are saying is that there is a whole, whole, you could say, in order to make Ayurvedic principles also say examinable or applicable by modern science, it is not just that the two are different, but there is a lot of investment of effort and energy and energy finances required.
Only then that will happen. So like Bhasma cannot be mass produced the way science produces some, the way pharmacy produces some things. So, yes.
So overall, you know, the Indian, maybe this can be the last question. The Indian government also established this Ayush, I think the last decade or so. And they also trying to, at least they are trying to promote Indian forms of knowledge, you could say.
So have you also explored a possibility of working with the government in national level? Because that could escalate, that could expand your reach substantially. Or you feel that you need some tangible research first before you can approach them? You say that Ayurveda is not mine. No, I’m not talking about Ayurveda, not at all.
I’m not Ayurveda, but I’m talking about the areas of research, which you are doing. Yeah, yeah, see, that is why I’m saying, because Ayush is connected to Ayurveda. And I’m not really, this is not my field.
This is not my field. Agreed. The field which you are working in, this would fall in broadly in cognitive science? Cognitive science.
See, my original field is AI. But my own studies of Bhagavad Sankhya and other things has brought me now to this field of cognitive science. Right? So it is a step in a direction, because I am looking in which area we should establish the university.
So that our university will uniquely know that we have contributed to a specific area. And so that is why I’m setting only two departments. And I know that next two decades, I will have only these two departments, because they have a lot to contribute.
Sanskrit and theology studies and cognitive science. These two departments have a profound implication for the future of humankind. These two are very different fields, isn’t it? You know, Sanskrit studies will go in more humanities and cognitive science will come in science.
This is where there is a complementarity. See, there is a complementarity. Sanskrit is not simply a language.
You see, in Vedanta, what happens? The at perfection, experiencer and experience, they are same. There is no distinction. The language and thought, no distinction.
Distinction disappears. Okay. So in that sense, the Sanskrit, I’m not looking at simply a syntactic language.
I’m looking Sanskrit as a semantic language that can contribute to the human growth in terms of cognitive ability. It has a huge future. So the way Sanskrit, like, for example, you know, we had so many Sanskrit pundits in India.
They could not figure out Sanskrit is the mother of Indo-European languages. It is Sir William Jones from UK who has to land in Kolkata in some 17th century. And he, at some point of time, he would establish that Sanskrit is the mother of all Indo-European language.
So is that accepted today? Yes, it is accepted. Now they talk about some Proto-Indo-European language from which both Latin and Greek came and Sanskrit also came. No, Sanskrit as a mother of all Indo-European languages is established.
Oh, okay. Yeah. That’s significant.
So you’re saying that there has to be a breadth of vision about what exactly we should, of how we can present our own traditions so that people can appreciate them. And you see that all our drama forms, performing arts, paintings, everything is connected in all these two subjects. Okay.
All our cultural traditions, all will come in this. Okay. So it’s a very broad field in that sense.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. It is not the way people look at Sanskrit and theology.
Or they look, and these two are complementary to each other. Oh, okay. Yeah.
That’s amazing. But this is a grand vision and I’m sure our viewers will be inspired. I myself appreciating the breadth of the scope once we start going into this field.
It is, we want to at one level help people to become Krishna conscious, but it’s like a pyramid. We help people to rise to Satva Guna and they appreciate and they themselves will explore. And this is a very, you could say, a very appealing way of ultimately getting people to appreciate Krishna consciousness.
Because otherwise, directly Krishna consciousness might seem sectarian to some people. You’re simply promoting a sect. But here it’s almost like you’re promoting wisdom and welfare for society in a language that or in a way that people can appreciate.
They’re addressing their needs and then they become more open to exploring, exploring the tradition from which these resources are being provided. It’s remarkable. Thank you so much for sharing this.
Usually at the end of a podcast, I try to summarise what we discussed. And then maybe if you want to add a few words and conclusion, you can add that. Can I try to summarise or are there something? Sure, sure.
Please go ahead. Okay. So today we discussed about broadly the topic of how, because a broad Vedic tradition can contribute in the world of science.
You talk about your own journey, how you’re very philosophically inclined and you studied the Bhagavad Gita, but it was when you came, associated with devotees, the scientific approach attracted you and then you used it to present like origins and books like that. How you realise that the data is there, but we can explain, interpret the data in different ways. And that is, that is, that is, that is actually the impact of Rashtrapu.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. So that was the model of, you talk about both those things.
But the idea is that you said that the focus of your own area of specialisation has come about. So the Vrindavan Gurukul is not just to say, it’s not just a Gurukul, it’s the foundation for all university. And in that area, we talked about the effect of, so at one level we accept, which I found it striking that our business is not to criticise science.
We recognise that Prabhupada also gave credit to science because it looked for the subtle element beyond the gross and science will by nature be empirical. And if we try to expand the domain of science beyond the empirical, it is prone to be vulnerable to, prone to get mixed with pseudoscience. So rather than trying to do that, what we do is that we provide, we show how within the empirical domain, our traditions, resources can provide solutions and answers which are not otherwise, which are not, which will challenge the model of reality or the model of the world that empirical science holds on to, that current science holds on to.
And one example of that is how alkaline soil could be converted into livable soil. And all of the chemical composition is the same. So similarly, I discussed about how the Raag Bhairavi, which was Raag Darwari, Raag Darwari, how that can lead to empirical changes.
You said the crosstalk between the various lobes of the brain decreases and that’s how people’s cognitive, there’s cognitive enhancement in their functioning. And then similarly, we discussed about various other principles like Bhasma and then also, basically the idea that within our tradition, there are many resources by which we can empirically demonstrate what are the benefits. And because today also people are becoming more open and receptive to things that work.
So if we can actually offer solutions to problems existing in the world today, then that can increase people’s receptivity and not only to the specific solutions, but also to the sources from which those solutions have come. And in that way, to the university, which we are pioneering in Vrindavan, the Gurukul is a vision so that our tradition’s wisdom can be made available at a broad level for to benefit people and then to attract them to ultimately Krishna consciousness. So any things you would like to add, Prabhu? No, I think you have summarised very nicely, very nicely.
Say that the two things we, any university we want to establish, it should acknowledge the success of science is that it looks for subtle cause, cross manifestation. And second, empiricism must be the way of science. Otherwise, it’s that we must, you know, I was contemplating on the Bhagavad Sankhya, where Prabhupada in one of the Purport is saying, we should always doubt.
Even the greatest of devotees, they doubt whether they have their devotion or not, right? So to say that whatever I say is absolute, that is not the way we can reform the society. So it is better that whatever we say is empirically verified. So hence empiricism, empiricism must be the way of science.
Although we know Veda is apparitia, Veda is absolute, knowledge is absolute. But when we bring that from the level of purity to the level where we are living, we cannot bring as it is and say we are throwing it. Now it must be given an empirical way.
That’s beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you for this point about doubt.
I think that is a very striking insight of Bhagavad Sankhya also. Doubt is a sign of intelligence and when we doubt, then when we don’t, we are not demanding faith, rather we are providing evidence so that doubters concerns can be addressed. It’s beautiful.
Thank you very much for your time. It’s wonderful to have your association and to listen to your experiences, insights and your aspirations. Thank you.
Thank you, Chaitanya Sarna Prabhu. Thank you. Thank you for making me part of your podcast.