Science & Spirituality ACT acro youth

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I’ll talk about three points today, using an electronic app. The overall topic is Science and Spirituality. So, A is Appreciation.
See, we, each one of us is an individual. But as individuals, we are on… We are on a search for understanding, floating sense of life, so that we live in a constructive, fruitful way. So, we can appreciate both science and spirituality.
If we understand their domains. Science, essentially, is the study of matter. Spirituality is the study of what matters.
Study of what matters. When Parashar Maharaj is about to die, in seven days, at that time, he wants to know, what is the most important thing in my life? How can I devote myself to that? So, when Arjuna is wanting to know, from Krishna, what is the right thing to do? He is not rejecting the knowledge of Arjuna, that he has learnt from Drona. That is not even logical.
Study of matter. It’s an important skill. But, what am I going to do? So, both of these, study of matter is important in life.
But, the study of what matters is even more important. Because, ultimately, somebody may have all the virginity, but what am I going to use it for? So, science provides us means. Spirituality provides us meaning.
Means and meaning. Means means, how do I go about doing things? Meaning is, what is the point of it all? And we, human beings, need both means and meaning. So, in principle, there doesn’t have to be a contradiction between them.
We could say, science is broadly about the resources that we acquire for getting things done. But this spirituality that tells us the purpose, the meaning, that is the ultimate value. So, now if you consider that this is the, we appreciate both domains.
And, it’s not necessary for somebody to be spiritual to reject science. And for somebody to be scientific to reject spirituality. But, the fundamental questions in life, science that we discussed works on methodological naturalism.
This way I mentioned that what it looks for, natural explanations for natural phenomena. Methodological naturalism means, that as a method, as a methodology, whenever there is an event, people saw the apple falling, and he wanted to know what is the material cause for it. So, if there is an event, now, the event is the apple falling.
Now, this event can have many explanations. So, the explanation in terms of material cause effect, is what science looks for. Now, beyond that, can there be any other explanations? Say, for example, people say that there is God’s will.
Is that explanation possible? Yeah, that’s also possible. But, that is not the primary domain of science. So, consider, say, it is a world cup final match, and India leads 6 runs to win.
And, say, Garad Kohl is batting, the bowler bounces it, and he swings heads up and it goes to 6. Everybody celebrates, and the post-match interview asks, how did you hit the 6er? And Garad Kohl replies, by Newton’s laws of motion. Now, is that the right answer? Well, yes, in one sense, you could explain. The ball came at this speed, I swung the bat at this speed, the ball met at this angle, it hit at the top edge, then it would have got ballooned up into the sky, and the pitcher would have caught it.
So, the Newton’s laws of motion can explain how the ball went over the body. But, when we are asking the question, how did you hit the 6? What it means is, how did you anticipate that it would bounce? Had you prepared it? Had you rehearsed or practiced the hook shot? How did you decide how you were going to hit it? So, we are looking for the same 6er to be considered. That is an event.
We could have a mechanical explanation for that. The mechanical explanation is, I hit the bat with the ball with the pitching force, and that’s why the Newton’s laws of motion went across. But, we could also have a personal explanation.
And the mechanical and the personal explanations can go together. So, science looks at the mechanical explanations. And they are important.
But, reality is complex enough that the mechanical explanations may not be the only explanations. And there could be explanations beyond that also. Unfortunately, over the history of science, if you consider most of the early scientists, where? Theism.
Science is also theistic. Theism means, if you consider the role of God as the creator, as the controller. So, theism says, yes, God is the creator, God is the controller.
So, Newton, Galileo, all of these pioneering scientists, they believed in God. But then, as science started getting exposed to more and more truths, so the point I am making now is, where did the contradiction come from? If both of them are in different domains and both of them can co-exist, why is there a respect between them as a contradiction? So, what are the acronyms we discussed? Appreciation. So, appreciation that both of them have their domains.
Now, we are going to see how they can co-exist. See is, co-exist. So, how can we be both? Why is it so difficult for them to co-exist now? So, over a period of time, scientists started subscribing more to a philosophy called theism.
The rest of the philosophers, Spinoza, I was a proponent of that. And Einstein’s God, Seymour and Spinoza’s God of theism. What is theism? Have any of you heard this word before? Theism is the idea that God is the creator, but not the controller.
So, if you consider the clock behind you, it’s a wall clock. It is clearly made by someone. It doesn’t come by chance.
But does the manufacturer have control over the clock now? No, it’s our clock. And if we can understand the mechanism of the clock, then maybe we can change the time, we can move faster, we can trick someone. We can do what we want with it.
It is for us. We just need to understand the mechanism. So this became the idea of science.
The universe is like a clockwork. Okay, maybe it was designed by God, but now it is all working only according to laws. So if we just understand the laws, we can control the laws, and we can change how things work.
So science moved towards theism. And as in science, that means it is a significant number of scientists. Because science essentially is a tool, looking at the world.
Trying to understand how things work. So as of now, if you consider, science looks for mechanical explanation. In that it is very modern.
But now art, is it possible that they are getting explanation beyond the mechanical? So initially science said, yeah, there could be other explanations also. And Newton’s idea was that, oh father, I think thy thoughts after me. That is, he thought that the laws of motion, or the laws of physics, are basically made by God.
And now we are understanding through science how God has fashioned the universe. That was how, for that, science and spirituality, the divine explanation and the scientific experience, both went together. But then gradually the divine hand started becoming more and more blurred.
And then eventually, much of modern science today is atheistic. Not much of modern science, even the scientists, many of them think that we have to be atheistic. That is, God is either the creator, nor the non-creator.
What this means is, that there is no other explanation apart from the explanation provided by science. So this is where the coexistence becomes difficult. This particular idea was a problem.
So actually, the idea that no explanation except what is given by science. Now this is not a theory that science can ever prove. This is technically called as Scientism.
Scientism is basically a portmanteau, a combination of two words. It’s scientific imperialism. Have you heard of imperialism? It is the British imperial forces, they ruled India, they ruled… So when science claims that there are no answers except what is offered by scientists, then it becomes Scientism.
Scientism is not science. Scientism is an ideology that is derived from science. But it is not based on science.
So anyway, the point is, I don’t want to get too technical over here, but the point is that there is this idea that science and spirituality can’t work together. This has come because science, instead of looking for natural explanations, started saying that there are no explanations other than magic. But this is not something science can prove.
And then, science comes up with various theories. Now for many people, the coexistence of science and spirituality becomes a problem when we talk about the origins, the origin of life, the origin of the universe, and things like that. But now in origins, this is where some people think that science has displaced neutrality.
But this is why it’s important to understand that scientific theories, they come by three different methods. One is deductive. Deductive is mostly maths.
So for example, 5 plus 11 is 16. That’s a mathematical thing. They just deduce it.
But then, most of science success comes through inductive method. Inductive method is what? You do n experiments, and then you conclude that n plus 1 also comes similarly. So you just saw an apple falling, and you tried to take different objects to fall in different places, and the same thing happened.
And based on that, you conclude that there is a log graph. So most of science success, whether it is physics, whether it is chemistry, whether it is medicine, it comes through this method of, what is the key to this method? It is repeated experiments. We do experiments again and again, and we try to discern a pattern.
And as I said, here science is, or many scientists have worked extremely hard to try to find out the patterns by which the nature works. However, when it comes to question of origins, science cannot do repeated experiments. We cannot tell the universe, please create yourself again so that I can observe you.
We cannot say, emerge right now, then I can see how you emerge. So for the question of origins, science uses another method, which is called the abductive method. And what is this abductive method? It is basically like a, what is it, who done it? Like a mystery novel, that there was this owner of the house, the maid gave him food at 9pm at night, and when she came back at 7am in the morning, there was a knife in his chest and he was dead.
So who murdered him? We cannot tell the murderer, please come back and commit the crime again so that we catch you in time. What we do is, here, it’s like a who done it mystery. So what is the way to resolve it? We call it the IDE, the inference to the best explanation.
Inference to the best explanation. So we may say, okay, who are there in the house? Okay, there is this young boy, who is 5 years old, he can’t put the knife, not strong enough. There is an old lady who is 70 years old, she can’t do it.
There is a butler. The butler is 25, strong enough. And then we conclude that the butler committed it.
It could be true, it may not be true. Now maybe they investigate, they find that in the room there is a secret trap door, and the murderer came to the trap door, killed, and then went back to the trap door. The point is, when you make inference to the best explanation, that is never as reliable as the knowledge that you got through the best explanation.
So the scientists try to infer, okay, how did this particular species came about? How did this life originate? How did the universe originate? How did human beings originate? In general, especially when science goes into the domain of history, it has to use this abductive reasoning. And abductive reasoning, it is highly speculative. It is highly questionable.
So here what is happening, this might seem a little technical, but the key point I want to make over here is that, suppose somebody is a very good stock investor, and wherever they get us to invest money, we invest our money and we make a lot of money. And tomorrow, you say, we find out that we have got cancer. And they say, we need to take the National Bank into account.
Now, can we take their authority on it? Well, you can give us a suggestion. But just because they are experts in stock investment, does not make them experts in marital affairs. These are two different departments.
So what happens is, when we use the word science, or when we adopt the word science, it is almost as if, it is deductive, inductive, and abductive. Whatever comes out of it, it is all called a science. The Big Bang Theory is called a science.
The Theory of Evolution is called science. But, the credibility of science is coming from credibility means its strength, its authority. It is coming from, say, the laws, which are of physics, chemistry, which have come from the inductive method to repeated experiments.
And what happens is, we think, okay, this is what scientists have said, and the science works so well. I put a dial number, and I can call anybody in any part of the world, it works so well. So how can somebody who is so brilliant as to have made a telephone, he spoke so well, how can he take wrong claims, when that question itself is based on a wrong presumption.
Not all theories of science have the same kind of credibility. Because not all theories have come by the same method. So that’s why the question about origins, they need to be treated with a pinch of salt.
Whenever scientists come up with theories of origins, the theory of evolution cannot be considered to be as credible as, say, Newton’s law of motion. Because Newton’s law of motion has been really tested, observed, experimentally. The theory of evolution, very little of it, I’m not saying I’m not thinking of it, the theory of evolution, not for that matter, I’m not saying the theory of evolution has to be rejected, but I’m simply saying over here this point that it has come from the inductive method.
The Big Bang theory or any other thing of universal origins, it has come from inductiveness. And that’s why if we question that, it’s not that we are rejecting science. We can still accept the authority of science, but not in medical science.
There might be one medicine which has worked very well, and it’s time-bound, and it’s time-tested. And another is a new experimental medicine. You know, we try to give people… I don’t want to take an experimental medicine.
I don’t want to be a therapeutic. That’s perfectly reasonable. I’m not rejecting medical science.
It’s just that the two are different degrees of… different degrees of power. So if we understand this, we can accept science in terms of what has happened in the inductive method. But what science has proposed based on the inductive method, especially about history and origins, that is something which is worth at least skeptical about.
So how can the two co-exist? That means, if the two can co-exist, that’s what we’re discussing. So if science and spirituality go in opposite directions, then it is possible that the scientific explanation is incorrect. It is possible that the scientific explanation is incomplete.
It is possible that the two are in different scales of observation. They are talking from different perspectives in life. So what do I mean by different perspectives? It’s just that things can be… when we see them from different perspectives, we come up with different ideas.
Like if I take chalk, what is the color of chalk? White. If you take coal, what is the color? Black. If you take coke, it’s blackish.
It’s white. Now, if we powder both of them, if we mix their powders, we’ll get some color of grey. Isn’t it? So now we’ll get something of a grey color.
If we observe that in a microscope, what will happen? You won’t see anything grey. You’ll see white powder and black powder. Black powder is in black granules.
But at our scale of observation, they see it now. So many of the things that I described in the scripture are not necessarily described on the human scale of observation. They are described on the human scale of observation.
The point is that don’t… if something seems contradictory, there’s no need to make a big U.N. paragraph. Science could be true at a particular level. Scripture could be true at another level.
So this is where cosmology works. For the last part, if there are no questions, we’ll be discussing this. For the last part, and I’ll go ahead.
T is transformed. So that transformed means what? That science has these two aspects to it, theory and experiment. Similarly, spirituality has two aspects to it.
There is philosophy and practice. The philosophy aspect of science is like the theory aspect. Philosophy aspect of spirituality and theory aspect of science.
And the practice aspect is that we experiment. And science can make things better. Science can make things better.
That means, say, we had a handbag, now we have a four-pack, now we have air-conditioning. Science can make things better. Now spirituality can make thoughts better.
Thoughts better means that internally we can become unified. Our thoughts can become healthier, they can become happier. With all our scientific advancements, suppose somebody has got anger, can you just say, okay, if you’re angry, just take this pill, and anger goes away.
It doesn’t work like that. You can take a pill and put the angry person to sleep, but their anger doesn’t go away. So science can make our outer world better.
Spirituality can make our inner world better. So rather than thinking that, oh, science is preparing for today, we focus on the transformation. That’s spirituality among us.
And the world needs this transformation. Why? Because people, things are becoming worse. And mental health problems are becoming huge, in India also, in the rest of the world also.
Why? Because we need to improve our thoughts that we have. Our thoughts cannot be heard as our thoughts that kill us. Future is basically what? You have a thought and you have killed a person.
So we need to improve our thoughts. And across the world, even big tech companies, I was just in America for two and a half, three months, so I was doing this time, I spoke at Salesforce, I spoke at Intel, I spoke at Google, and these are not companies inviting us because they are interested in Krishna. No, but they are interested in their bottom line.
They find that even their employees learn some meditation, learn some mantra chanting, learn some spiritual practices, then they are calm. Then they function better, their mental health should go longer. So what happens to spirituality? There is a, when it comes to spirituality, the philosophical aspect, we can keep debating about it.
Is it right? Is it wrong? But the practical aspect, the practice aspect, it is actually empirical. Empirical means, we can actually experience transformation. And it’s not just me, that will say, my mental health is depressed, I’m depressed.
But even mainstream research, there are many papers available online about how if you do brain imaging, their mental health must be meditating. Their brain wiring becomes much more complicated. Basically, when a person is addicted, their brain gets wired in a particular way.
So if a person meditates regularly, their brain wiring changes. So, there are many books written on this topic. But the point of it is that this empirical aspect is being felt by thousands and millions of people all over the world.
Yesterday was the World Yoga Day. Now, it’s not that people are practicing yoga just because it’s a passion. They are getting some benefit out of it.
And it’s not just physical benefit coming from books. If they’re getting that, it was written into them. They are finding some calming effect out of it.
And that’s why they’re exploring more. So, we can ourselves benefit from the transformative potentials of each other. And we can see that our own thoughts can become better.
And, science will progress in its own way in making some things better. But if we could be individuals in making our thoughts better, in the combination of making our thoughts better internally, in the things we’re exploring, the combination can help us make the world better. So, I’ll summarize.
I discussed about today, science, spirituality, relationship. And I talked about three points. First, A was what? Appreciation.
So, we appreciate that both have their domains. So, what is science domain? To the study of? Matter. And spirituality is? What? Matterness.
So, what is how important? That’s what? Ilika. Ilika and the Bhagavad Gita. And this means that science, for any event, science offers an explanation.
That’s a mechanical explanation. And spirituality offers a? Non-mechanical, a personal explanation. We discussed the example of a six-celled hybrid.
So, that, we look for something beyond the micrometallic explanations. And there, it’s validity quality. Now, when we talk about CMOS? Coexist.
So, now, how can they coexist? We look at the history of science of, it’s like scientific overconfidence. What is the overconfidence? That God is from theism to deism to atheism. The overconfidence is that there is no explanation beyond the scientific explanation.
And then science offers explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific for explanation the explanation for the explanation for the explanation for the scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the