When science seems to falsify scripture how to maintain faith? | Science & Vedas

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Jai, Jai, Jai, Jai, Jai, Jai, Jai. Jai, Today we are discussing, from one of the, more, sobering, sections, of the Srimad Bhagavatam. So, this is describing, the plight, of the, child, of, the living being, in the, mother’s womb.
And, while describing, this plight, the, the, focus of the, Bhagavatam is on illustrating what the Bhagavad Gita talks about how Dukkha is unavoidable in this world. This world is Dukkhalaya. So, sometime ago one devotee called me, he said that my faith is completely shaken.
I said, okay, what happened? He said, when I was introduced to Bhakti, I was told about this section in the Bhagavatam which talks about Gynecology and how there is advanced scientific knowledge over here. And he said, I was recently giving a session and when I was talking about this, how there is advanced scientific knowledge, there was one boy in the class, he said, actually you are saying that the child in the embryo is bitten by worms, but there are no worms in the womb. So, it is completely wrong.
And he said that, he was speaking to a group of medical students and they said, yes, we have studied it, there are no worms in the womb. So, there are worms in the intestine and there are various kinds of germs over there, but the womb is actually a very protected place. So, he said, I felt so humiliated and confused.
So, I said, is the Bhagavatam wrong? Is my having faith in the Bhagavatam, am I mistaken in having the faith? If the Bhagavatam is the word of Krishna, how could it be wrong? If it is Shastra, how could it be wrong? And he said, yeah. So, how do I understand this? So, the topic I will talk about in the basis of our faith, what is and what should be. We all have certain things on which we base our faith and often what we base our faith on, need not be the actual essential basis for our faith.
So, I will take this particular thing as an example and will focus on this principle of, basically Prabhupada talks about, there are principles and there are details. So, sometimes our faith may be based on certain details, but our faith needs to be based on principles. So, that’s the point I will try to discuss today and we will try to keep some time for questions and answers at the end.
Basically, there are many different ways in which faith can be awakened and for that, there are many strategies that can be used for helping people to develop faith. So, for example, now, if we are considering faith, generally, if we consider, most people live in the material domain and Krishna is spiritual, ultimately. Of course, Krishna is not just spiritual.
Krishna controls the material domain also. There is spiritual domain and the material domain. So, now, because we live in the material domain and we want to develop faith in the spiritual domain.
So, quite often, this is the faith we want to develop, but the journey of faith often goes through the material domain. So, now, through the material domain means, I will talk about three different things. One is, in a practical sense, when Sri Prabhupada came back, went to America and came back to India, he had brought western people with him and they had started practicing bhakti.
Now, seeing those western people practicing bhakti actually attracted Indians and gave them some faith. Now, when we are using the word faith over here, it is shraddha in the sense of that initial faith. The word shraddha can mean many different things, but in the 9 stages of bhakti, shraddha, Prabhupada translates almost like favourable curiosity or maybe there is something of value over here.
Let me explore this. So, that shraddha, in general, is developed by something materially impressive. So, the materially impressive could be that successful, powerful people are practicing spirituality.
So, in today’s world, at least in India, the west is considered to be successful. Indians are infatuated with that white skin. So, western people practicing bhakti, that was very impressive.
Traditionally also, if the kings would bow down to sages, that would impress the general masses. Oh, these sages are poor, they have nothing. The kings have everything.
Why are the kings bowing down to the sages? Maybe there is something, maybe these sages have something special. So, generally people need to see something materially impressive. So, it could be successful, powerful, it could be people, it could be structures.
Structures means, in the past, there could be giant buildings which would be temples. Even now Prabhupada tried to adopt that by having magnificent temples that would attract people. So, the idea is, for most people, the initial attraction from the material to the spiritual or attraction towards the spiritual comes through something material.
Now, another thing could be miracles or mystical powers. In every religious tradition has this thing about miracles. Say, in the Christian tradition, Jesus is said to have taken one item of food and multiplied it or he has walked over the ocean or God is supposed to have parted the sea.
In our tradition, we have Krishna lifting up the Govardhan Hill. We have a bridge being built across the ocean by the Vanaras. So, there are miracles, things which do not seem to happen normally and they happen.
And it is not just in scripture. Many times people start following some Baba or taking up some path because they were sick and nothing was getting cured and nothing was working for curing them and they did some things and they got cured. So, it seemed like a miracle to them.
So, Christians often weaponize this and often use, not all Christians, there are some Christians who are trying to use Tamasic means, they have what is called faith healing and actually there is no healing but there is an illusion created and faith healing were working as much as they claim it works. Now, why do they have to fund any hospitals at all? Isn’t it? Now, why do they have to have any hospitals at all? So, the point, but this is how sometimes faith develops. Now, another way something material impressive can develop our faith is facts and figures.
So, every religious tradition has this tendency to try to claim, because nowadays science is the influential body of knowledge. So, every tradition, if you just Google and search, advanced science in the Bible, advanced science in the Quran, advanced science in the Vedas and advanced science in the Guru Granth Sahib, you know, you will find something or the other there. Now, how persuasive it is, it is open to question, but people need something materially impressive to come toward the spiritual.
So, now, when we use this, it is a strategy and if you see many times our Acharyas, they have downplayed mystical powers, they have downplayed miracles, although Krishna does perform miracles and devotees may also have mystic powers, but devotees generally don’t use mystical powers to attract people to Krishna, because the point is, through mystical powers, when people are attracted, their primary attraction is more toward the mystical powers than to the Lord, who is the source of mystical powers. And so, the idea is, when we use something material to establish faith in the spiritual, it is always a questionable strategy. Why? Because it may work in a different way.
We build a large temple to attract people’s faith toward Krishna and instead of attracting people’s faith, that may attract people’s envy and that’s why invaders may try to come and destroy the temple, plunder the temple. So, it can have the opposite effect. If somebody tries to base faith on miracles, then, ok, maybe one miracle has happened, but there are ten others which are claimed to be miracles.
And no organization has a universally accepted, no religion also, has a universally accepted body that will certify, this is a genuine miracle, this is a bogus thing. The Catholic Church has a body which tries to certify miracles, but by the time they take to certify the miracles, it has already spread like wildfire among people. So, it just doesn’t work.
Somebody may claim, ok, we saw the deities having tears on their face, and now was it really true, was it somebody’s imagination, was it optical illusion, what was it? It’s very difficult to know this. So the point is, that if somebody’s faith is developed by seeing something which is claimed to be a miracle. Now, miracles Krishna can certainly do, but there is one true miracle, there are ten things which are claimed to be miracles, but they are proven to be false.
And somebody whose faith is developed by seeing miracles, then after that, if some other thing which is claimed to be a miracle is proven to be false, that person may think, ok, maybe the previous one was also false. And the faith will not be steady. So for us, there is the journey of Shraddha, and then after that there is, the next stage of faith is Nishtha.
And the key that takes one from Shraddha to Nishtha is actually Anartha Nivrutti. Anartha Nivrutti means that we experience personal transformation. We experience for ourselves the change.
So, for example, if we go to a doctor. Now, initially our faith in that doctor, faith in the sense of the favourable curiosity, to go to that doctor may be awakened in many different ways. It may be because a friend told us, you know, go to this doctor, he works very well.
Maybe on the doctor’s website we saw pictures of a person who is very sick and that person has become very healthy. Maybe somebody was crippled or paralytic and now they have become an athlete and they are very athletically fit. Oh, such a big transformation.
Maybe by seeing that develops our faith. Now, anyway, the initial faith is developed. The important thing is, if the medicine works for us and we are positively cured, maybe not completely cured, but significantly cured and on the journey of healing, then that faith will be much stronger.
And even if say, somebody provoked that photo that the doctor had put over there, that was a false photo, that was a doctored photo. Okay, maybe, but my faith is not based on that particular photo. My faith is based on my experience, that I have seen the transformation and this comes, this Anarthanivrutti happens through bhajana kriya, through the, again, personal practice.
I need to practice, like I need to take the medicine and then after I take the medicine, I experience improved health and then there is firm faith. So, because we live in a world where science is quite prominent and prestigious, so there is a natural tendency to try to show the credentials of spirituality, rather to help people develop faith in spirituality through the medium of science. Now, I have a website named Science, Spiritual Scientist.
So, I have studied this subject quite a bit and I have over time, my own understanding has refined about what are the approaches that work and what is it that works the best. So, broadly speaking, there could be two ways. Science is wrong, scripture is right.
This is one way to go about it. And we can give a list of, you know, science had this theory and that theory was proven to be false and then science had that theory and that theory was proven to be false and then that theory, that theory was proven to be false and science keeps changing. It keeps, further research keeps proving that the theories are false and therefore we should follow scripture.
That is one approach. The other could be, science is right, but scripture already told this before. You know, what is, what is given over here, scripture has already given this long ago.
And in that way, we try to prove that science is nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing special. Actually, scripture already told this. So, broadly, there are these two approaches.
Within that, there can be further nuances, but let us look at these two approaches, broadly speaking. And then we look at a third approach, which I find the most effective in today’s world. So, as I said, these are strategies and depending on what works, we use it.
So, these can also work. Now, science is wrong, scripture is right. It can seem, okay, scientists had this theory and this theory proved to be wrong and scientists did this experiment and that went wrong and this had this effect, that had that effect.
That is true. But often, if you look at scientists, they don’t portray the wrongness of science as a weakness. They portray it as a strength.
That who told you that science was wrong? We only told you it is wrong. So, we have an internal self-critical system by which we critique our findings. And that is how we come closer and closer to the truth.
So, they say, now there are some people who use science to claim absolute certainty. But scientists say, we never claim absolute certainty. We are only claiming or providing some understanding and our understanding is evolving.
And their argument is, one prominent ethicist says, the difference between science and religion is, science is slowly becoming more and more right, religion is permanently wrong. Permanently wrong and proudly wrong. So, now that is their way of looking at things.
That’s, of course, not correct. But the point is, in today’s world, if somebody claims I am right and you are wrong, it quite often is seen as arrogance. Now, how do you know that you are right? Oh, scripture is right.
How do you know? No, scripture is word of God, therefore it’s right. So, it is, how it becomes? It sometimes becomes like circular reasoning, that God is right and therefore scripture is right. But how do you know scripture is right? Because scripture is the word of God.
How do you know scripture is the word of God? Because it has come from God. Well, where do you start the proof of this? It’s circular reasoning and it doesn’t really work for many people. Now, for some people it can work.
But the point is that this doesn’t always work. It can be used as a starting point. Many starting points could work.
Now, the other is science is right. So, if you say science is wrong, they say science is self-critical. Now, they say religion is not self-critical.
In religion, if their understandings are wrong, are they ready to change it? We say our understandings are never wrong. But then, can we really prove that all the time? We can in some ways. I am not going to go into that because we will talk about this when we come to a little later, what is essential and what is peripheral.
So, now if you use the word religion, what all is there in religion? Which aspect of it is the core part of religion? Which aspect of it is not the core part of religion? So, that is all to be explored, which is a big subject. Now, the other point is that, okay, science has found this, but religion had this long ago. So, for example, science has developed airplanes.
In the Vedas, we already have Vimana Shastra. Ravana had a Vimana. So, the advanced technology is not all that advanced.
We all had all that before only. Now, if we look at science seriously, what science says, so there is a difference between how serious scientists think and then there are people who are simply proud of science. And they make statements based on science.
You see, science is a body of knowledge and atheists have used science or misused science to promote atheism. Science is neither theistic nor atheistic. Science is just a way of looking at the world.
So, science has many times been misused by atheists and that is why sometimes we equate science with atheism. In the book Life Comes From Life, where Prabhupada seems to be very strong in criticizing scientists. If we read it carefully, what we will find, there is one statement Prabhupada says, we are not against the knowing spirit of science.
Knowing means wanting to know, learning, curiosity. He says, we are against their atheism. So, you could put this way that science is a way of knowing, a way of looking at the world.
Science has many things. You can have science as a product of the way of knowing also, but as a scientific method. Now, science could be used by theists and could be used by atheists.
So, atheists can use science to try to justify atheism and theists can use science to justify theism. But science itself is a body of knowledge. It’s a way of looking at the world which leads to certain knowledge that comes up.
So, now, if you consider in between, you could say here, there is a scientist. Now, scientist could be a theist, scientist could be an atheist. Now, what scientist says that the speciality of science is not so much the result that it achieves, but the process by which it achieves the result.
What do I mean? That science is able to make a plane fly. That’s what common people see and are impressed. But they say, what is the speciality of science is that there is a process that we understand and we can repeat.
That is what makes science special. Now, you may say, spirituality may say that, oh, you know, some sacred texts may say, oh, the vimanas were there in the past with us. But can you replicate the vimanas? Oh, that is a mystic power.
That people don’t have the mystic power. You can’t replicate it. So, what happens is that science doesn’t give you the result, but science gives you the process to get the result.
And the special thing about science is, it provides us a repeatable process, a demonstrable repeatable process. So, when we start claiming this knowledge is already given in science, even in scripture, then we have to be careful about what we are claiming. So, now, just a few days ago, there was an article in the Guardian.
I was quite surprised. Guardian is a very left-wing paper, which is quite against India. But there was an author who is quite an Indian specialist and relatively an India sympathizer, Christopher Dalrymple.
So, he wrote about how India has contributed to math and to architecture and so many other fields. He talks about how zero has come from India, but India has not given the credit for that. So, that is his new book and it’s an excerpt from his book.
So, now, there are definitely things. So, for example, the concept of zero, it has come from India, although often credit is given to the Arab world for that. From India, it went to the Arab world.
From there, it went to the West. Now, there is reasonably strong evidence that the Pythagoras theorem was propagated, was talked about by Boudhayan. So, there are definitely quite a few facts, which are given in the Vedic texts.
You can say Vedic texts is a very broad body, which is, which later science discovered. So, this is also a useful approach. However, we have to be careful.
If somebody says, oh, you know, cloning is already there in the Mahabharata. Okay, how the Mahabharata, the Pandavas, the Kauravas were cloned? Well, initially, it might seem impressive, but there are many problems. Clones are identical.
The hundred Kauravas, they were not identical. Maybe they had a similar demonic mentality, in that sense, they were identical, but they didn’t have the same body. So, that’s not cloning, technically speaking.
And cloning means you have one form from which you get many other forms. So, these are, there was, there’s not one form from which you got many other forms. There’s one lump, which was divided to hundred.
So, when we make claims, what kind of claims are we making? There was one, one, one minister from, nationalist minister from the North East, he said, internet was already there in the Vedas. And he said, it was through a traditional version of the internet that the sages communicated. And that’s how there’s communication happening.
Now, this is, that person just became, he was roasted on the social media, he was trolled and roasted. Now, the point is, the sages may have had some mystical ways of communicating. But again, the point is, not just the result, the process.
What impresses people today now is, that everybody has access to the internet. Can whatever was the equivalent of the internet, by which some kind of communication over distance was happening, can we provide that for everyone today, using the Vedic means? No. So, again, this is not to reject this approach, but to recognize that if somebody’s faith is developed by this approach alone, then the faith may come to question.
Because sometimes that approach works, sometimes that approach doesn’t work. So, you have to be careful. Now, with this background, let’s move towards the topic which is here, that here the discussion is of the child in the womb.
So, whenever we are studying scripture, the study of scripture is going on, there are two distinct things. There is the point under study and there is the point of the point. What is the reason why this is being mentioned? Now, Parikshit Maharaj is on the verge of death.
He is not interested in getting a degree in Gynecology. The Bhagavatam itself is not claiming to be a book on Gynecology. The point of the book is to give us spiritual knowledge.
Now, first of all, let me clarify one thing. How do we understand that the Bhagavatam says that a child is bitten in the womb by worms and there are said to be no worms in the womb? Well, first thing is the Bhagavatam, when it is describing a journey of a child in the womb, that journey is describing a possibility. It is not describing a universality.
Universality means this is how it happens for everyone. Now, the specifics vary. Just like after we are born, do all of us have the same life journey? No, all of us have different life journeys.
So, if our life journey after coming out of the womb is different, why should our life journey inside the womb be the same? Isn’t it? Say, even from a practical perspective, now say different women may live different kinds of lifestyles and not every woman may be able to necessarily live in a way which is most comfortable for the child in the womb. So, it is natural that the child will have a significant level of different experiences. So, the specific example, like the Bhagavatam is giving a principle that Parachandam Navidusha, that you can’t know what the desire of another person is.
And therefore, the child is given, after coming out of the womb, the child is given something which the child does not need, the child does not want and which causes suffering to the child. And the example Prabhupada gives is that a child may be crying and the nurse may give the child some bitter medicine thinking that the child is crying because of some pain in the belly. But the child might just be hungry.
Now, is this a possibility? Of course, it’s a possibility. But is this something that will happen to every child? Not necessarily. Not necessarily.
It can happen. The principle here is that there is a point and there is a point of the point. The point is specific.
Prabhupada is giving a specific example. Now, there may be many, many babies for whom there is never a nurse. There is only, maybe the mother is poor, the mother wants to be personally involved.
So, all the care is taken by the mother only. But there is no nurse. So, the mother, if the baby is crying, the first thing she will do is offer her breast milk.
Why would she give some medicine beforehand? Maybe if the nurse is there and the mother is not available, the nurse may think, with no milk available, let me give some medicine. So, it’s certainly not a necessity that this is what has to happen all the time. So, the point is some example of how the child suffers.
The point of the point is that the child suffers. And specifically, Parachandam Navidusha, that the child is not able to communicate. And the child is not able to communicate what it wants, what it does not want.
That is a very difficult situation to be in. See, when we are suffering, and I said when I was in UK, I was talking with one devotee. He was in a serious accident.
And he was not in coma, but he was awake, but unable to speak. So, he was not able to move his body, is not able to speak. So, he said it was more than the physical pain, was the frustration of not being able to communicate at all.
Like I wanted to meet someone, see someone. I was thinking if I die, I want to reconcile with so and so person. And I wanted that person to come and meet me or at least talk with them on phone.
But it is just not possible. So, it’s frustration. So, the point is some example of suffering.
And the point of the point is the reality of suffering. Suffering will come in some way or the other. So, it is important for us to not focus too much on the point or focus so much on the point that we forget the point of the point.
So, taking this point of possibility and inevitability or universality. Now, there is a possibility that there can be worms in the womb also. In some cases, if there is severe infection in the intestine, now the worms in the intestine get multiplied.
And then if the infection spreads severely, the worms can come in the womb also. It is certainly not common, but it is certainly not unheard of. It is not impossible.
It can happen. So, what the Bhagavatam is giving is a specific example of how a child may suffer in the womb. But that does not mean that the child will have to suffer all the time in that particular way alone.
So, if we emphasize too much certain points that are not important so much. For us, now when we are practicing Bhakti, how important is it for us? How much of our faith is based on the fact that there is precise, advanced gynecological knowledge in the third canto of the Shrimad Bhagavatam? We may not even think about it much. If now our faith is largely coming from our own practice of Krishna Consciousness and the transformation that we have experienced in us, the realizations that we have got, the higher happiness we have got, the freedom from cravings and unhealthy habits, the peace that we have got, the decrease in anxiety that we have experienced.
If all that is the basis of our faith, now then why emphasize something else in the beginning? So, if we emphasize that which is peripheral, that which is not a central detail in the beginning and then later on somebody finds out this is not exactly the way I was taught, then the faith will be shaken. So, the Bhagavatam’s point is that there is suffering in the world, that when one goes through life, there is suffering and therefore we should look for something higher to move from suffering. So, I’ll conclude with, as I said, there are different approaches and I found the approach that works is basically science and spirituality.
You can say scripture talks about many things, but ultimately scripture is about spirituality. Science is the study of matter. Spirituality is the study of what matters.
Science is the study of matter. Spirituality is the study of what matters. What is really important in life? In the Bhagavatam, when Parichit Maharaj sat down to hear from Shukadeva Goswami, it was, what really matters now? I have a powerful kingdom, I have ruled virtuously, but now that I am going to die, what is the most important thing? What really matters? He is not interested in the study of matter.
The Bhagavatam may give us some knowledge about the study of matter, but we are studying, Parichit Maharaj approached the Bhagavatam not to get better knowledge of matter. Now, we can get better knowledge of the purpose of matter. What is the purpose of matter, material existence, but primarily it is the study of what matters.
When Krishna speaks to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna does not tell any battle strategies. Krishna does not tell Arjuna about how to use the Gandiva more better. That is the study of matter and he has already learned it from Drona.
When he is coming to Krishna, he is asking, Please tell me what is the right thing to do? What is it that matters the most for me at this particular point? Should I consider that doing my duty as a Kshatriya matters more or not attacking elders like Bhishma and Drona, that matters more? Tell me that. So, spirituality is the study of what matters and for us, when we chant Hare Krishna and we practice Bhakti, what happens by that is, we start understanding that Krishna matters more and more. How does our anxiety go down, how do our cravings go down, how do we experience greater happiness? Because for us, we connect with Krishna.
So, study of what matters means what? We can say the spiritual journey. When we grow on the spiritual path, the path of spiritual growth, it means that initially for us, the world is very big and God is very small. So, initially when I started practicing Bhakti, I started sharing with my relatives.
So, my uncle told me, Yeah, I believe in God. He is happy there, I am happy here. So, the idea is that God doesn’t, even if God exists, God doesn’t matter.
But as we grow spiritually, the world becomes small and God becomes big for us. So, spiritual growth means we understand that Krishna matters more. Yes, in this world, sometimes I will be famous, sometimes I may be anonymous, nobody may know me, sometimes I may be criticized, sometimes I may be praised, sometimes I may be wealthy, sometimes I may be poor, sometimes I may be loved, sometimes I may be neglected, sometimes I may be healthy, sometimes I may be sick and these things do matter.
But what matters much more is if I can connect with Krishna in my heart. If I remember Krishna, I remember that Krishna loves me and I remember that by loving Krishna back, I will always be sheltered and when we do that, that is what is the essence of spiritual growth. So, for us, when there is, at this stage, there might be some shraddha, but it may or may not be there, but it is at this stage, there is nishtha and more.
Nishtha means God matters more, that my connection with Krishna is what matters the most. So, for all of us, this is the basis of our faith. In whatever way we may have practiced bhakti, we have got some realization, Krishna is the most important thing.
Now, of course, we may get tempted, we may get distracted and it is also possible sometimes in that situation something else matters more at that particular time and we have to give attention to that. But overall, spiritual growth is understanding that Krishna matters more and when we are helping others in spiritual journey, what is important is, we help them practice the process by which they can get that realization themselves. So, instead, if we start focusing on how material knowledge is given better in scripture than other sources, well, okay, that is one way, but that is not the most important thing.
From wherever people get material knowledge, it does not matter. Prabhupada, when he was sick, generally he took Ayurvedic treatment, but Prabhupada was not fanatical Ayurveda only. Prabhupada was a pure devotee of Krishna, not a pure devotee of Ayurveda, isn’t it? So, when he was in UK, when he had some emergency issues, he had a procedure that was done through allopathy.
Now, is Ayurveda better than allopathy? Well, in some ways, it is better. But the important thing is that, is it because Ayurveda has come from the Vedas and allopathy has come from the West, so therefore, we all have to dedicate our life to proving that Ayurveda is better than allopathy. No, we don’t have to.
And if in some cases, somebody takes Ayurveda, they don’t get cured and they take allopathy and they get cured. Should that shake their faith in Krishna Consciousness? No, it should not. Because we are not coming to Shastra for material knowledge.
If Shastra gives some material knowledge, that’s an additional benefit. We can use it. But we don’t come to Shastra for material knowledge and we don’t base our faith in Shastra on the material knowledge that it is giving.
Our faith in Shastra needs to be on, based on the inner transformation, the spiritual transformation that it brings about. So, to that end, the approach that works today, in today’s world, I find is, not many people need spirituality to be proven scientifically. I’ll give three examples of this and I’ll conclude.
See, yoga has become so popular in the world. Now, if you look at the scientific research about the benefits of yoga, it’s not really much. There is some research, but many, many people have experienced the benefit themselves.
Okay, you know, I am fitter, I am slimmer, my body is more flexible. So, they experience the benefit. When somebody tries to practice yoga, is it that they do an elaborate research of which scientific journal paper has published research in science or in nature or here or there? No.
If it works, people really are not concerned so much about whether science has proven it or not. The second is with respect to our own tradition of mantra chanting. Now, we may quote, millions of people have tried out mantra chanting.
It may be Hare Krishna mantra, it may be some other mantras, but Hare Krishna mantra also, many, many people have tried out. If you consider how much the scientific research that has been done on the potency of the Hare Krishna mahamantra. Maximum I have seen is one research done in the University of Florida, which we often talk about mantra power.
Now, that research is, if you consider the standards of scientific research, it was one research which has never been replicated and further studied and proven. It was just a PhD thesis. It was not published in a scientific journal, what to speak of any high level scientific journal.
And so, within the scientific credibility, the credibility of that research is not very high. I am not saying that such research cannot be done or should not be done. The point I am making is, those who have tried out mantra chanting, their faith has not come from some unpublished PhD thesis in some university in America.
That has proven this, that’s why I have faith in chanting. No, that’s not the basis at all. I am not minimizing the value of the study in any way.
I am saying that, so, both yoga and mantra chanting, actually the faith comes from the fact that it works in whatever purpose it is meant to serve. We are not telling that mantra chanting will improve your health, but it helps people find more peace, it helps people get more freedom from cravings and addiction and things like that, negativity and in that sense it works. So, if we consider from this perspective, now, among the various researches, mindfulness is very big and mindfulness, there is a good amount of research, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, there is a good amount of research in that.
But still, if you read any book on mindfulness, most of the books contains, any of the popular books on mindfulness, the focus is on how to be mindful. The focus is not so much on this research was done over here and this research was done over here, this research was done over here. So, the age where people needed scientific proof to do what they were going to do, that age is more or less over now.
There is the modern times and now largely we are moving towards post-modern times. Here, people choose based on not what science says is right, they say on what works for them. So, we are in what is called post-modern age and that’s why putting too much emphasis on science is not really required.
I wrote a book on reincarnation, I have been traveling for the last 10 years in the west and there are hardly any times when anybody has seriously asked me, is there scientific proof for the existence of the soul? You know, even if I tell organizers, I would like to speak on this topic, they say it’s not a very interesting topic for people. It’s not a faith maker or a faith breaker. I just present, you know, in the yoga text, there is a model of the self in which there is a soul, mind and body.
Okay, it’s a model, let me try to understand. Does this model help me to understand myself better? Does it help me to function better in my life? If it does, okay, let’s move forward. People are not, there are some people, definitely they would like to scientific proof of the existence of soul, but that is not the basis of people’s spiritual practice.
I have not met any person and I can’t say that I have met a lot of people, but I have, I have not met any person who said, I cannot practice spirituality because I don’t have faith in the existence of the soul. That has not been an obstacle for anyone. There are many other obstacles.
Many people have more doubt about the existence of God than they have existence of the soul, as far as I’ve seen. Isn’t it? There’s a whole group of people called atheists, but there is no name even for a group of people who don’t believe in the soul. Isn’t it? So, the point is that we have to choose our battles.
So, we help people develop faith in a way that won’t cause their faith to be unnecessarily challenged in the future. So, rather than trying to show that spirituality is superior to science, we say that spirituality fulfills certain needs that science does not fulfill. That science, yoga, mindfulness, mantra chanting, these fulfill some needs that science does not fulfill and you can experience it yourself.
So, there is space for science and there is space for spirituality. There is space for, in the Vedic tradition, there was space for Ayurveda and there was space for Adhyatma. They were not competitors.
So, we also don’t have to position modern science and spirituality as competitors, that both of them have their domains. There are areas in which they overlap. There are areas where there are apparent contradictions and they have to be dealt with.
But, let spirituality can stand on its own feet. Spirituality doesn’t need to stand on the shoulders of science. So, I’ll conclude, I’ll summarize what we discussed today.
So, the topic I discussed was choosing the basis of our faith. That our faith or other’s faith, what do we base it on? So, I discussed three main points. The first point was that about faith in the spiritual through the material.
So, it could be anything materially impressive. It could be people or objects like large temples, kings or western people or whatever, westerners who are considered successful, things which are materially impressive. Then, it could be miracles or mystic powers where something which is normally not possible, that is done through spirituality.
And then, there are facts and figures. Oh, what science does not know or what science got wrong or what science got later, we have already got it in the past. Now, each of these approaches, it could be useful, but it depends.
Sometimes, it’s a strategy. For us, when we want to develop our faith, the key point is that if we start with something which is shakable, then afterwards we’ll get shaken. So, we talked specifically about science and spirituality.
I talked about is science is wrong, spirituality is right. That is one approach. But the point is, scientists can always say that we are self-critical.
So, we are actually humble in our pursuit of knowledge. But you are arrogantly claimed to be right and you don’t scrutinize yourself. And that’s how blind faith goes about.
There’s a possibility of that. Then, that is, we already knew this, that you came up with all this later. It’s possible, but it depends.
Is it really true? When we say, the two things I discussed about it, some things may be that the end result is given, but science offers us not just the result, but the process to do it, the process in a repeatable way. And that is what is the strength of science. So, there are, these approaches can be used, but they can be problematic also.
The last point to discuss is, the best is, science and spirituality both have their domains. Science is the study of matter. And there are various ways in which matter can be studied.
And it is not that only in the 15th, 16th century, humanity started studying matter. In the Vedas, people have studied matter before. And there are some insights which are very valuable in that.
But when we turn to spirituality, it is for the study of what matters. And for all of us, the initial shraddha that the world is, that God exists, God matters, that initially God seems very small, and shraddha can come in various ways. But ultimately, we want to come to the level of nishtha, where we understand that God matters much more.
And that nishtha will come through personal practice, that is bhajana kriya, followed by personal transformation, that is anartha nivritti. And for that, the important thing is, we need to encourage people to practice bhakti, practice spirituality. And I give examples of how today, that science is not really needed to inspire people to practice spirituality.
I give the example of yoga, of mantra chanting, and mindfulness, that people can turn towards spirituality, because they feel a need. And spirituality serves that need. So, we don’t have to feel the need to push science down or stand on the shoulders of science to establish spirituality.
Spirituality can have its own ground, and it can stand on its own feet. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So, any questions? Yes, please. Thank you so much for this insightful lecture. Prabhuji, my question is that, we see that in present scenario, most of the preaching approaches we use, and the materials and modules that we use while preaching is based on confrontational approach.
So, inevitably and unwillingly also, we have to use some statements. Can you give an example of confrontational approach? Like the slides we use, and they have a particular section on embryology from Srimad Bhagavatam, wherein we try to reconcile the both, and we also take an example of Big Bang Theory, and we already have it in our slides. So, inevitably we have to use these theories, and we have to confront some things which we do not want.
Well, I am not saying confrontation should never be done. See, like Prabhupada said, we are against the atheism of science. So, if there is atheism being propagated in the name of science, or using the name of science, then that has to be challenged and countered.
So, for example, if somebody says that the idea of the soul is unscientific, well, we need to establish that there is, there may not be scientific proof, but there are significant scientific pointers. There is a decent level of evidence by which the case for the existence of the soul can be made. So, I am not saying that we should never confront.
That will not work at all. What is that? Recently I saw a poster, they said, you know, if you want to make everyone happy, just distribute free ice creams. You know, you can’t be a spiritualist, you can’t be a preacher, you can’t be a teacher, you can’t be a leader.
There are people who want to be unhappy, isn’t it? So, there are people who are going to get upset by what we are going to say. I am not saying that we should never confront. All that I am saying is, there is no need for unnecessary confrontation.
Now, specifically, which confrontation is necessary, which confrontation is not necessary, that different devotees and different preachers, based on their experiences, will have different understandings. And I don’t think there has to be necessarily one approach. Should there have been less confrontation, more confrontation, no confrontation, full confrontation? Well, there are different approaches and different devotees may prefer different approaches.
So, I think we need to observe what works for us, for our audience and we adapt. So, I don’t think it’s that if we decide that, okay, I don’t want to, if I am doing a course, we can talk with our senior devotees nearby and say, okay, maybe I don’t want to speak on these slides. I don’t think anybody is going to say that you have committed an offense to the holy name by removing this slide from your presentation.
It’s not like that. So, we have to see what really works in our context and adapt it accordingly. And what I am saying is not that this is the only approach.
I am just saying that my experience was this is what works. And sometimes, I see in many ways, maybe 20 years before, 15 years before, when people didn’t have access to the internet, we could rely on people’s ignorance for the success of our preaching. Now, also people may be ignorant.
I am not disrespecting people by saying that. And I am not even criticizing our past ways of preaching. All that I am saying is that in the past, people didn’t know.
Now, also people may not know, but they have access to ways of knowing. Now, whether the ways of knowing really need to correct knowledge or not, that depends. But the point is, we can’t just assume that people will accept because people just don’t know anything about the subject.
So, that is not there. They have at least information at their fingertips. And so, it’s a changed landscape.
And when the fighting the battle of yesterday, today, isn’t it? So, it’s like, we cannot be fighting with bows and arrows when the opposite side has machine guns, isn’t it? So, we have to fight the battle of today, today. Thank you. Thank you so much for this insightful lecture.
Probably my question is that scriptures, like when scriptures provide end result, but not the process. So, people find difficult to have faith on such things. But when science provide end result, but not the process, for example, the creation of life, like Shri Prabhupada says that science cannot create even a blade of grass.
And like they say that matter comes together and forms life. But people easily can place their faith on such statements rather than scriptures. So, why is it so? Yeah.
See, the thing is that this is an elaborate subject. But in science, theories are developed in three different ways. One is what is called as the inductive method, which is the most common.
Inductive means you do 50 experiments and 50 times something works. So, Newton saw object falling and he repeated, okay, this object, apple fell, a stone fell here, a stone fell not just in London, but in Paris, in Melbourne, here, there, repeated experiments. So, inductive method is the most common.
Now, there is another method that is deductive method. Inductive method is basically mostly maths. So, Einstein said very, very little of reality can actually be come from the deductive method.
Now, when science is using deductive, this is not exactly Arohan and Virohan Pantha that we talk about. Arohan, that is different. Inductive is basically 3 plus 7 is 10.
That is just axiomatic truth. So, science has some things which are axiomatic, some things which are the experiment. Now, there are some theories which science arrives at by what is called as the abductive method.
Abductive method is what abducts our intelligence. Not necessarily. See, abductive method is where science does not have the possibility to do repeated experiments.
Say, for example, if the science has the idea of the continental drift theory. So, they say that India and Africa were one continent in the past. Then India drifted away and India collided with the Asian continent and that is how the Himalayas rose.
Now, that is a theory. Now, there is some basis for it as per scientific method. But they cannot use the inductive method for that.
Because you cannot do repeated experiments about this. So, generally, for fields like history, fields like archaeology, fields like cosmology, much of this in these fields comes from the inductive method. And if we study serious, if we talk with serious scientists, they will themselves acknowledge that what theories that come from the abductive method are not as credible as theories that come from the inductive method.
So, most of the faith of people in science comes from the theories that have been developed by the abductive method. And that works by the inductive method. So, if I turn on my phone and try to call someone, I am able to call most of the times.
If I turn on the car, the car moves. So, these are laws of mechanics, principle of electromagnetics and all these. These are largely products of the inductive method.
So, science, all science is not born equal. So, that is why rather than criticizing science, we have to understand that different science is in different category and we need to establish that. See, we have nothing against the theory of gravity.
Now, we have concerns about theory of evolution. Although both claim to be science, they are not science at the same level. Evolution is not something which is proven by the inductive method.
At least if the claims of evolution to bring about all the varieties of species, that life forms change, that is something which is always observed. Mutations happen and that’s how when the COVID was there, the virus kept mutating and that’s why medicines were not working. So, that is fine enough.
But that life forms change does not mean that the change of life forms has given rise to all the life forms. These are two very different ideas. So, we need to target properly within science.
So, there are theories from the inductive method which are questionable and they need to be questioned. But most people do not understand the difference that all science is not born equal. So, if somebody has a lot of faith in science, then we have to educate them.
Like say, Kashmir was a very big problem maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Now, tourism is flourishing in Kashmir. How did it happen? India did not say, oh, Kashmir itself is a problem, just bomb Kashmir and destroy everyone over there.
No, there were some elements which were anti-India, insurgents, they were curbed and eventually crushed, at least to whatever extent is possible. There were neutral elements, they were won over, there were pro-India elements which were empowered. So, same way, science also, there are elements within science which are anti-spiritual, there are elements within science which are pro-spiritual, there are elements within science which are non-spiritual.
So, we need to be more targeted in our attack. Thank you. Yes, please.
Thank you so much for this wonderful lecture. Prabhuji, I had one doubt, like there is certain type of people who have so much interest on self-help topics, mindfulness and brain and all things, but when we talk to them about spirituality, I have got one of my friends, he has so much interest in all of these topics, but when we go about spirituality, they have very strong faith in so many scientific theories like theory of evolution and multiple theories and they have so many strong arguments and facts like rat and human share common DNA and we were from Africa and multiple things. So, at that time, we are not able to like convince them and build faith in them.
So, what to do at that time, Prabhuji? So, choose your battles. It is not necessary for us to… where human beings came from is important, but what will give human beings fulfillment, that is even more important. So, origin is important, but meaning and purpose and destiny is even more important.
So, spirituality gives us a vision of origins, but more importantly, it helps us find meaning and purpose in life. So, if somebody is interested in mindfulness and things like that, then focus on that and show how the Gita offers us a model of the self, which… how does mindfulness work? I have written a book for specifically the mindfulness audience called You Are Not Your Mind. So, basically, there I don’t… for them, where is their faith, from there you build it up.
So, for them, these issues are difficult to accept because they have so many other ideas. Those battles can be fought when they need to be fought. In the first kind of Srimad Bhagavatam, let’s take another example.
When Prabhupada was in Hawaii, some devotees came to him and they said that, that Prabhupada, when we talk with the scholars and we tell them that the Bhagavata… that Ugrase, who was the king of Dwaraka, had some astronomical number of guards, they start laughing at us. They say, you know, Dwaraka is such a small place, we had millions and billions and trillions of guards, where would their homes, where there were toilets, how would they move about? Now, Prabhupada could have said, Krishna is inconceivable. Krishna can maintain the entire population of the universe on one tip of a needle.
Prabhupada could have said that, but Prabhupada’s approach was remarkably non-confrontational. Prabhupada said, among all the thousands of the verses in the Srimad Bhagavatam, was that the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? Is that the most important thing that we need to speak? We have limited time with people. Twice Prabhupada was asked, you know, if somebody wanted to study a very small sample of your teachings, what would you consider the most important teaching? So, Professor Thomas Hopkins asked him.
So, Prabhupada said that, those two verses, 1, 2, 9 and 10, that life’s ultimate purpose is spiritual growth, not material gratification. So, that said, Prabhupada said that is the most important thing in his teachings. So, I think we need to choose our battles.
So, let’s focus on what they can accept at that stage and move forward. Which is based on, as per the lecture, that is based on how I am getting transformed. Is that right understanding, Guruji? See, I am not sure what the word Shastrik Shraddha means.
Because I have seen it used in different contexts in different ways. Lokik Shraddha is a fair enough term for it. From the material we develop, spiritual.
Because in Shastra also, there are many things which are told and not everything in Shastra is necessarily directly spiritual. Like say, somebody can have a lot of faith in Bhakti, but they may still have questions about cosmology, in the Bhagavatam’s fifth canto. So, is their Shraddha Shastrik or not? So, I would prefer to use the word Adhyatmik Shraddha.
So, now, maybe Shastrik Shraddha, the way our Acharyas have used it in some places, it is the same as Adhyatmik Shraddha. But, so, in the 17th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, it talks about faith in the three modes. And, now, that means faith is possible at various levels.
So, Krishna does conclude by saying, in that chapter, by saying that we should focus on Shastra. But then, how does he define Shastra over there? If you go back to the previous verse, tasmat shastram pramanam te karyakarya vyavasthitau. So, when you talk about Shastra, he is talking about guidance for living.
He is not just talking about various elements of knowledge that might be given in various places. So, in that sense, Shastrik Shraddha can be said to be Adhyatmik Shraddha. So, I would focus more on the point that the spiritual faith in terms of the transformation at the spiritual level that we experience individually.
And, like, what the point is and what the point of the point is. And, the second question is, Swamiji, that, like, you said that you went somewhere and you asked that to give scientific proofs of soul, and they said that it is not much important. But, we see that Prabhupada repeats this thing a lot, that we are not this body, we are spirit soul.
No, no, no, two different things. That the point that we are spiritual beings, that is a vital point and that needs to be spoken. But, whether the speaking of that point needs to be established scientifically, the two different things.
I am not saying that the soul itself is not an important point to talk about. It is definitely an important point. That is why I said, I just presented, this is a model of the self, where there is body, mind and soul.
And, people, they are more interested in, okay, how does that model help me? How does it help me make sense of my behavior? So, like, you just started with the chariot model, if you can say. I prefer the software model, that the body, mind, soul is like a hardware, software and user. Yes, yes.
So, and then I talk about how our drives come up, where the mind is like a window, where pop-ups happen and all those things. So, it is not that soul is not important. The teaching of soul is very important.
But, establishing the point of the soul scientifically, is it important? It is. But, I have not found it to be the most important thing. So, I am not saying we should not do it.
Not at all. See, I am saying that, what is the most important? So, when we are… So, in our Discover Yourself course or somewhere like that, we have evidence for the existence of God, evidence for the existence of soul. I am not saying we should not have it.
That is not my point. My point is that, if somebody’s faith is based on the fact that, oh, Jan Stevenson did so and so research and that proves the existence of the soul. But, maybe some other researcher comes up and finds some fault with Jan Stevenson’s method, or finds that some of his research was corrupted.
And that particular case was not actually as strong in evidence as possible. Should that shake the faith of someone? No. So, it is okay.
There are three different things. Importance of the soul, the importance of scientifically establishing the existence of the soul and the importance of basing our faith on the scientific proof for the existence of the soul. There are three different things.
So, what I am saying is, our faith should not be based on scientific proof for spiritual things. That could be a starting point. But soon, we should be able to help people move ahead from there.
Is the difference clear? Yes. So, we can go with the old slides. Of course.
It was good that you asked that question. But we should not give again the emphasis on the four points that consciousness and this and that. But we should move ahead and… Okay.
Even from what I have seen, your experience might be different. Each of us has a different experience. When I used to do the D.V.I.S. course also, it is not that the existence of the soul or existence of God was like necessarily faith maker or faith breaker for people.
It is an important point. But many times, the idea of what I can practice, how I can benefit from it, becoming a part of a spiritual community, finding some ultimate meaning of life. And then the soul and God within that help us to have a meaningful vision of the world.
So, it all contributes and definitely. But I do not think this is the main thing. So, definitely, our current approach to outreach, it is a fair enough approach.
It is like, we build a big temple so that we can attract people to come to a temple initially. But how many times in our classes do we say, just see how big a temple we have. This proves that Krishna is God.
No, we do not do that. So, initially, we use certain approaches. So, yes, we give scientific evidence for the existence of soul.
That is perfectly fine. But we do not have to stop. But if somebody says, oh, you know, I went to this city and there is a small temple of ISKCON.
You know, the temple is so small, is ISKCON really right? If you think that the size of the temple determines the rightness of the philosophy that you are practicing, then there is something seriously wrong with your practice of philosophy, is not it? So, like that, if somebody’s faith, initially, we may build a big temple to attract people. Similarly, initially, we talk about scientific evidence. But eventually, we need to help people to base their faith on something much more personal.
Thank you, Prabhuji. Thank you so much, Prabhuji. I have a question.
Like you mentioned, we started, the faith start and with the material things and then it grows. So, sometimes happen, somebody is like saving a faith, but he, he start thinking, like his faith is shattered down. And now, I just wanted to, this is not a question, I wanted to confirm from you, like this is, the faith has gone down because of his, like you mentioned, because of his own practice that is not following, particularly, or it is something else, that because… Various things, various things, you can’t really say.
Sometimes they may meet people who shake their faith, isn’t it? Sometimes, if somebody’s faith is based on how well-behaved devotees are, and they meet some devotee who doesn’t behave well, who misbehaves, and they think, okay, maybe Krishna Consciousness is wonderful, but these devotees are, these devotees are not good. In fact, if you look at history, one of the main reasons for atheism is misbehaving theists. It is not so much the, like priests who were exploitative, abusive, power-hungry, religious people who were too sentimental or hypocritical.
That’s one of the main causes of atheism, historically speaking. So, we cannot make a categorical thing. Basically, it could be an individual cause, it could be an institutional cause.
Both are possible. In general, the tendency is to blame the individual. Your sadhana was weak because of which you went away.
You did this, you were doing this. And there is truth to that. It is good for the individual to take responsibility.
But it’s also important for the institution to introspect. Are we doing something wrong because of which the faith is not coming? Faith is getting shaken for people, okay? Thank you so much. Mataji, you had a question? You wanted to ask something? We’ll stop with this.
Hare Krishna, you said that, at some extent, science is working and spirituality also. But we are living in Krishna consciousness. So, I want to tell all bhaktas of Krishna consciousness that, even in our olden times, Pushpak Viman, our rishis, where the Andhyaatmikta starts, spirituality.
So, it is much, much more advanced than the science. The science is, everything is based on spirituality. Very well, sorry.
Yes. See, the word Veda, Krishna says, Vedai, what is that? No. So, the word Veda can mean the Vedas themselves, which is the Vedic text.
Veda can mean knowledge. So, we can say that the Vedic texts have come from Krishna. And we can also say that all knowledge has come from Krishna.
So, Krishna, if Krishna is the God of the whole universe, can Krishna not give some valid knowledge in the Western world? Why do we have to limit Krishna this way? So, in order to establish the faith in the Vedas, do we have to say that throughout human history, Krishna never worked outside India at all? In the name of glorifying Krishna, we are limiting Krishna. So, now, that does not mean that every knowledge that everyone has got is right. Of course not.
But if some knowledge works, we understand the same Paramatma who is acting, who is giving that knowledge. So, we can have both a specific view as well as a universal view. But the important thing is, whether it is specifically a universal view, we need to see beyond the immediate to the ultimate.
So, our faith that certain knowledge is in the Vedas should not just make us materialistically proud. See, how great I am, how great my country is. No, our focus should be how great Krishna is.
Then we can reconcile these different sources of knowledge. Thank you very much.