Are science and spirituality at war with each other?

Lecture Ppt

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Hare Krishna Today morning we will discuss about Science and Scriptures So powerpoint will just be projected Till it happens I will give some background Often people think that there is a Conflict between Science and Religion in general Or in specific with respect to our topic Science and Scripture Now Actually speaking The conflict is not Necessarily between science And religion The conflict Is always Between Materialists and spiritualists It is If there is a conflict going on The conflict is between materialists And spiritualists And Materialists sometimes Misappropriate Science for their purposes That means Materialists Now there are multiple terms over here There is no need to get overhauled by the terms But I will just quickly clarify The terms There is materialism, there is atheism There is naturalism and there is Scientism So materialism as we know It means matter is the only reality So materialists Are pure devotees Of matter Matter first, matter only Nothing matters Except matter Because nothing exists Except matter So these are materialists Then there are Atheists Atheists Are those who say There is no God So now materialists And atheists are close cousins Close it for the time being I will come to that Materialists and atheists are They are close cousins Many of them They overlap But atheists specifically Are those who don't believe in God Who reject God Then there are There is naturalism Or naturalists So naturalists Have the idea that nature Is the only reality Nature is the only reality So naturalists are very similar to materialists Very very similar Some small differences And then there is A fourth category called School of thought called Scientism You know like we have communism We have socialism Capitalism So When science is made Into an ideology That is called as Scientism Scientism is different From science What does Scientism mean? Scientism means That Scientism is the belief system Its ideology Which claims That science Is the only way To knowledge Science Is the only way to knowledge That there is no other way To knowledge apart From science And all other forms of knowledge Which may be there They can be reduced to science And if they cannot be They do not agree with science Then they are of no use There are Many eminent scientists Who have Pointed out The error of Scientism The error of Scientism means That the idea that Science is the only form of knowledge This is Nobel laureate Erwin Schrodinger He is, what is he stating? I am very astonished That the scientific picture of the real world Around me is very deficient Very deficient What are the deficiencies? First he tells, what does science do? It gives a lot of factual knowledge Puts all our experience In a magnificently consistent order That means Newton observed when fruit is falling And then after he observed the fruit falling He designed certain laws So now by those laws Wherever we go on the earth We can consistently make predictions And make machines And do actions So it puts things in a consistent order But It is ghastly silent About all and sundry That is really near to our heart That really matters to us It cannot tell us A word about red and blue If A novice artist Makes a very beautiful painting Or there is a Maestro painter Who makes a classic painting Can Science in and of itself tell us Which is a better painting? No, it can't tell us The aesthetic value We can use photoshop and other software To make images High quality images But who decides the image is high quality? The computer can't decide that So This is the aesthetic side Which cannot be decided by science About bitter and sweet Smell with respect to taste Science can tell us What are the ingredients Of Suppose Let's take a hypothetical situation There is a person Who is a believer in scientism Who claims that All knowledge can be acquired by science And such a person is your friend And at your home Suddenly your Today your mother Has made a very beautiful cake And then this friend Says, you know, whatever you want to know about this cake I'll find out With my science So then he calls some biochemists Ok, find out what are biochemicals, isn't it? Then he calls some atomic physicists Ok, what are the chemicals? How are they? What are the fundamental particles? How are they interacting? And further He may call some mathematicians Ok, what are the equations By which when the chemicals are Mixed in this particular proportion How do they interact? Come up with a whole fascinating Array of data But then To ask this Can you tell me Why my mother made this cake? Why my mother made this cake? There is no answer to that Isn't it? Now imagine If this person All these different branches of scientists They start just looking at each other With a blank face And then this person says If science cannot find out Why your mother made this cake Then that means there is no why There is no reason why the cake was made Now It just happened Your mother will get angry It just didn't happen I spent hours making this cake And then Suppose she is a very cool headed lady She doesn't get angry She says Today 25 years ago The first truth Appeared in your mouth So To commemorate that event I wanted to make something sweet And succulent And delicious for you And that's why I made this cake Now No matter how much science advances Can science ever find this out? Now No matter how many probes we get And how many probes we put inside the brain We are not able to find out this This is completely beyond The scope of science So now Actually speaking This particular Advocate of scientism He is putting the scientists In An unfair position Why? Because he is asking the scientists Out of syllabus questions Science answers How questions Science doesn't answer why questions How questions How this happens But why anything exists That question Is beyond the scope of science Now So how the cake was made What are its components That science can answer But why the cake was made That science can't answer Isn't it? Similarly if we go bitter and sweet Physical pain and physical delight So Scientists Now the whole field of medicine Is to free us from pain But can science Actually quantify pain We may have some pain Meters Which can infer Okay this bone is broken this much Therefore there must be a lot of pain It is broken slightly less pain But pain is an internal experience Now to give a simple example For this more specific example That suppose a person Has a nightmare Now scientists were putting sensors around the brain They can find out Whether a person is in deep sleep Or is having dreams And by the kind of signals that are in the brain They can even make out Which part of the brain is active Based on that they can make out Okay now the person is having dreams or not having dreams And the intensity of the dreams Can also be roughly inferred But Okay now this person is having a very intense dream If they want to know What is he dreaming No sensor can do that To wake up the person And ask what were you dreaming Isn't it So physical pain and physical delight It knows nothing Of beautiful and ugly Good or bad Now good or bad is extremely important to recognize Science Is By its definition Amoral There are three words Moral, immoral And amoral Moral means A person who acts according to right and wrong Immoral means One who acts according to Wrong One who does wrong things But amoral means One who makes no judgements about right or wrong Science Can tell us That if you put arsenic In the breakfast of your elderly grandmother She will die But Science cannot Tell us Whether Doing such a thing To get your hand on her Inheritance quickly Is right or wrong Science cannot tell us this Now scientists Have their own moral sense Human beings have their moral sense In general and based on that They decide Should this is right or is this wrong So science is Amoral Science does not tell us what is right or wrong If you look at the World history 1930-1940 At that time the world's most scientifically Developed country Among the top scientifically developed country was German Germans prided themselves on their Scientific advancement And Many of the people Who made the gas chambers In which the Jews were killed 7 million Jews were killed Totally 14 million people were killed by Hitler Nazi regime And they often used Scientific technology for doing this Now It's not that science killed them We are not saying science is to be blamed It is of course the ideology of Nazism killed them But Science was used To do this killing And there are many prominent scientists involved in that Who developed the technology But science does not Tell us what is right or wrong We get our sense of Right and wrong from some Other source Is this point clear? We are not blaming science We are simply pointing out the limitation of science Actually my computer Is not getting projected I have a series of other quotes On this There is another Nobel laureate scientist called Peter Madever And he makes this point That one of the worst Disservices that a scientist Can do To humanity And to science Is To claim that science Has all the answers To all the questions And If science does not have answers To any such questions Then those questions are useless If a person thinks like this Then such a person is Doing a disservice to science So he has written a book called Advice to young scientists It is a very well known book Because it is written by Nobel laureate So people regard that book very highly And in that he makes this point And he says there are other branches of knowledge And there one has to find out the answers to those questions So now Science sometimes Pretends to answer questions In these domains But the answers are very often so silly That we are not inclined To take them seriously Here again science is What is a scientist Arvind Schrodinger is not just a Nobel laureate There have been hundreds of Nobel laureates But he is one of the founding fathers of Quantum physics We have Schrodinger's equation So he is himself saying That I don't take seriously And he is saying that we shouldn't take seriously We are not inclined to take this answer seriously So what kind of answers is he talking about Suppose Scientists say that Okay What is happiness They say that Actually happiness is just The discharge of certain chemicals in the brain Certain chemicals are Discharged in the brain that is why we feel happy And some Scientists also said that We will just find out And we will eventually have A panel of buttons on your brain And whichever emotion you want to feel Just press that button you will get that emotion If you feel excited press one button If you feel happy press another button It is so simplistic It just doesn't work like that Now yes certain chemicals are Released When certain emotions happen But the secretion of the Chemicals Is the result of that emotion It is not the cause of that emotion This is when I am Happy I smile So The smile is a physical Expression of an inner emotion Of happiness Somebody gets it all wrong We want to make people happy in the world So for the whole Human population we will get Face twisting machines And we will Twist the face muscles of all Of humanity into a smile And everybody will be happy Will it work like that? No we can't get The cause and the effect wrong So when I am internally Happy a physical expression is a smile And a Neurological explanation Or not explanation expression A neurological means in terms of Brain chemistry A neurological expression of that inner happiness Is the emotions that we Experience So in this way Science answers many Questions But it answers primarily the how questions And even in the how Questions it does not give Exhaustive answers So here this quote primarily This can be an elaborate subject But I think this will be enough to establish This point that Scientism is not science The belief that science Has a monopoly on all Human knowledge That is not a scientific statement That is not a scientific statement Scientists themselves have refuted it Albert Einstein has said All sciences, all arts All religions Are the fruits of the Same human tree The same human tree So when we point out The limitations of science We are not Disrespecting science We are actually respecting humanity What are we doing When we are pointing out the limitations of science We are not disrespecting science We are respecting humanity You know saying that the President of America Is not the president of the whole world Is that a disrespect To the president of America No it is a simple Statement of fact Now if somebody gets Disrespected by that That simply means that person is an egomaniac Isn't it That person is an egomaniac and is imagining That the president of America is the president of the whole world Similarly Those people who claim to be scientists And they get Angry when the limitations of science Are pointed out Then they are actually simply Abusing science To boost their own ego So science is one circle Of the Knowledge that humans can acquire Einstein says that Similarly the same human spirit The same human intelligence Has also brought fruits in form of arts In the form of religions And they all contribute to the Growth of human potential And Einstein himself Has given a series of lectures On morality Going back to that earlier point Of morality, science cannot tell us right and wrong He says we can talk about the Moral foundations of science But we can't talk about the scientific Foundations of morality We can talk about the moral Foundations of science Is science being used morally or immorally But we can't talk about the Scientific foundations of morality Because morality Is not something which science can decide That is something Which is decided from an entirely different Field So now till now You see that I have not brought in spirituality at all Even within material Knowledge, art, music Or Recipes Or even all these sub fields that we are talking about They are simply material subjects So even with respect to material knowledge Science doesn't give us Exhaustive material knowledge So scientism Itself is unscientific Scientism Scientism is what? The idea that science can give us all knowledge That is not scientific There is no scientific experiment To prove that science can give us all knowledge That is just a belief system Of some scientists Especially these are Atheists or naturalists or materialists Who want to Impose their own ideology On the whole world So now for atheists By science we cannot directly With a telescope Or a microscope we can't catch god So If science is the only source of knowledge And by science we cannot find god Then god doesn't exist So what is happening? Atheists abuse science To impose Atheism on people Is this point clear? It's not that science is saying that There is no god exists Science gives us knowledge about how the natural world works Science doesn't talk about What exists beyond the natural world But atheists say that science Has a monopoly on knowledge And by saying like that Then they can misappropriate For their own belief system The prestige of science Yes if you want to be scientific You should be atheistic Who said so? Science doesn't say so, atheists say so They are two different things entirely Now going to Naturalism Naturalism is the idea that nature Is everything Nature is everything, nature can explain everything Now again This is like saying A simple example Or two examples for understanding this First is By Newton's laws of motion We can predict We can predict When and where If a batsman Say Last ball of a cricket match is there And at that time The bowler bowls And it's a high ball and the batsman swings his bat And it takes the top edge of the bat And flies through the air Now depending on the speed of the ball Depending on the speed with which the bat has been swung For strength with which the bat has been swung Depending on the extent of the contact Between the bat and the ball The laws of motion Can predict a trajectory And then we can say Whether the ball will clear the fence Or will not clear the fence Now all that is fine But Science can Through the understanding Of the natural world Predict Whether that particular ball Where its trajectory will go But Can Now who is causing the motion It is not the laws of motion That are causing the motion That motion is caused Because the batsman has swung the bat The laws of motion Where the cause of the motion Then every street side Batsman will become Sachin Tendulkar Because laws of motion are same for everyone See the laws Natural laws are never causes They are simply Modes That describe How causes produce effects What are natural laws? They are simply modes By which we describe How causes produce effects A simpler example If I have A thousand rupees in my pocket And then somebody else Gives me three thousand rupees Now the law of arithmetic Will explain rationally How My pocket now contains Four thousand rupees But No matter how much time we provide The law of arithmetic Is not going to Produce four thousand rupees in my pocket What is four thousand rupees? Even four paisa cannot be produced Again, if the laws of arithmetic Were going to produce Money, then all the Poppers in the world would be millionaires So, naturalism Which says nature causes everything That Is not true Again, is this point clear? That laws of nature They describe how Things interact Describe how causes Will produce effects But naturalism is the idea That not only did the Not only did the laws of motion Cause the sixer To be hit, but laws of motion Also Created the batsman The ball, the bat And the whole cricket ground also This is absurd So, naturalism cannot explain things So, it cannot explain Reality exhaustively Is this point clear now? So, till now what I have discussed Now I will go to scripture I differentiate between these four terms Scientism itself Is not science Science is one important branch of knowledge But there are other branches Of knowledge also And Naturalism, Scientism And Atheism And Materialism All these Actually are not scientific There is no necessity For a person who is scientific To have to believe any of these Belief systems Atheism, Naturalism, Scientism Or Materialism Science will describe how things happen And it does not describe Causes And it does not describe Creators How things came Where did things come from originally Now let's go back And look at the totality of knowledge So, now if we look at Total scriptural knowledge That can be divided into three categories The scriptural knowledge That agrees with science The scriptural knowledge That contradicts science And the scriptural knowledge That transcends science So, agrees With science Let's look at these categories So, for example, now scriptures say that That consciousness Comes from the soul Avinashita tadviddhi Yena sarvam idam tatam Vinashyam avyayasyasya Nakashchit kartum arhati So, Krishna says in 2.17 in the Bhagavad Gita That, that which pervades the whole body That consciousness comes from the soul Now As science is studying more and more of The phenomena of consciousness The science magazine They prepared a list of 25 unanswered questions Actually 125 unanswered questions Questions for which science Doesn't have answers But 25 most prominent questions And the questions which are Unanswered by science till now And the second most important Unanswered question that they said is Where does the consciousness Come from And the first, of course Most important question which science has not answered is Where does the universe come from Where does the universe Come from There are Many scientists who, atheists Who say that We will scientifically prove How everything came from nothing But the way they Prove, prove in double codes How everything came from nothing Is by Redefining nothing so that It is something That means They say that what is the nothing The nothing is a quantum mechanical vacuum Which requires Dozens of pages of Complex mathematics to describe So that is not nothing That is something That is a lot of things So, so the point is Even mainstream scientists Acknowledge Not just in any Closed door conference But in Centennial issue of One of the most important magazines That the origin, where did the universe come from And where does consciousness come from These are questions for which There are no answers But as scientific research is progressing More and more scientists Are pointing out that actually the source of consciousness Is non-cerebral Now there is Wilder Penfield John Eccles There are several other Nobel laureate Neurosurgeons They have all said that consciousness Does not have Material expression Many of them like that So these are all, not just ordinary scientists They are Nobel laureates, neurosurgeons They are saying that consciousness does not come from matter It has a non-cerebral Non-cerebral means outside the brain Extracerebral, non-cerebral So this is one example of Something which the scriptures Are saying and science is now Agreeing with that So we have discussed several examples of this In the Discover Yourself course also Like Bhugol and other things like that So this is first category Second category is This is often the most troublesome for us If we have come from a scientific education When science and scripture Seem to contradict each other So We will discuss that in more detail But before that let's go ahead And look at a third category That which transcends science Now the previous discussion About scientism Will help us understand that Yes there is indeed a branch of knowledge That transcends science There is much knowledge that transcends science And that knowledge transcends science That We have to have alternative Sources of knowledge for acquiring it Now for example Whether beyond this material world There is a spiritual world And in that spiritual world There is the highest planet And in that there is God who is in a Beautiful bluish black form There is no way science can Either prove it or disprove it It just Transcends this reach of science So For the knowledge which transcends science The only source of knowledge Will be Scripture The only source of knowledge will be scripture So we study scripture Primarily for this Transcendental knowledge See our focus We may give some examples Or we may study some examples Of how there is advanced Scientific knowledge even in the Vedic scriptures That is primarily to Give us faith in the validity Of the scientific knowledge But the The essential Gift that science offers Us is That knowledge which Scripture offers us is That knowledge which transcends science There are millions of people Who have throughout history Millions of people who have practiced throughout history Scripture and they benefit from it Benefited from it Even before science came in People were practicing spirituality Gaining peace of mind, gaining happiness Gaining purification So this was the benefit which is always there So our primary focus is This third circle Transcend science Now let's move forward And further understand What do we mean by the knowledge that transcends science So I have already explained this But this is just a graphical depiction of these things Is there something beyond science So as in the mind, emotions These things cannot be perceived So there is a world of gross matter And there is a world of subtle matter And the world of spirit Which science cannot reach And Therefore there is definitely There are things beyond science So what happens is further if we see Again another way of understanding this is The totality of reality Is There is gross matter, there is subtle matter And there is spirit So now among this What does science study? Science studies gross matter It doesn't study subtle matter and it doesn't study spirit at all Now when we say scripture Scripture actually studies all three But its primary focus is Spirituality And that's what it focuses on Ok Now scientific knowledge can advance And it is advancing It will keep advancing But what is the nature of the advancement Its advancement Is In one sense unidimensional What do you mean by Unidimensional It advances In more and more information About matter and how matter Operates So if you see what was beyond scientific knowledge What was Beyond the reach of scientific knowledge That still stays beyond The reach of scientific knowledge only We don't Come to know about that through Science There is a subtle matter or spirit Science by itself cannot come to know of that And then even within what science Knows That knowledge is porous Porous means there are holes in it It is based on assumptions and axioms And because it is based on Assumptions and axioms Then these things cannot be proven I won't go into technicalities But there was a Kurt Godel A famous mathematician He made a mathematical theorem By which he proved Its called Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem And he said that No matter what theory science Comes of it It will never be able to Explain itself And in that sense scientific knowledge Will always be incomplete Scientific knowledge Will always be incomplete Now on my website I have got a further detailed explanation of Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem So those of you who are technically minded You can search for that But the point is this is itself a scientific principle It is acknowledged that Scientific knowledge is porous So it has holes within it And that's why it leads to Incomplete understanding And it's imperfect As I said it is imperfect about Existence, purpose and value I already talked about these things Existence means where did the whole universe come from Why do I exist Purpose Why did the mother make the cake Why does this world exist Purpose it can't say Value means what is right what is wrong Science doesn't tell us these things So in that sense Scientific knowledge is limited Now let's move forward And look at Faith and inquiry So that is faith and science Or science and scripture They can not only coexist They can complement and reinforce Complement means we get some knowledge From science we get some knowledge from scripture And they can complement Now we are going back To the second circle Ok So now you remember the three circles So we discussed About that which transcends Now we come to the second circle of that which Contradicts And let's look at this So Science There are three possibilities when there is Contradiction One is Science is wrong Second is science is incomplete And third is Science and scripture Observe from different scales So let's look at this Science is wrong So for example Now there is a modern evolutionary synthesis Which claims that All of that basically Humans came from Stones Stones came from chemicals And chemicals came from A big bang and that big bang came from Nothing because of nothing So now this Is basically Whole thing is unproven Now here Now the idea that science is wrong It may seem a little jarring There are hundreds and thousands of scientists Who are doing research How can science be wrong? So again I will go a little bit technical over here To explain How all science Is not equally Authoritative Science works Science uses Three forms of argumentation One is called Deduction Second is called induction And third is called abduction What is deduction? Deduction means We postulate a universal truth And then deduce subsequent truths by that So mathematics Is deductive For example If 3 plus 5 is 8 This is a universal truth 3 plus 5 will be 8 So deductive Truths are the most Authoritative Now in science Only mathematics is deductive Most of science is inductive Inductive means what? That Science observes A particular set of symbols A particular set of observations And then based on that we do induction Induction means Further inference Further inference Further inference means say Newton observed the fruit falling Now most people Just have picked up the fruit and eaten it and be happy Isn't it? But Newton didn't do that Newton observed and thought Why is this fruit falling? So maybe there is an attraction between the two And then he repeated that experiment So many different objects There is an attraction So now he made Different scientists have made 100,000, 5,000, 10,000 What are observations? And based on that they postulated theory Theory of gravity And then after that They explained based on that There is a law of gravity So what is induction? Say we make 100 observations And based on 100 observations When we find a consistent pattern within that Then we conclude that There must be a universal principle So what happens? We have finite data and we extrapolate Beyond that data And by that We come to some conclusion That is Newton's law of motion Which operates everywhere Now induction Even within scientists David Hume was a famous philosopher scientist And he pointed out the problem with induction Now just because something has happened 100 times, 1000 times It is not necessary that it will happen all the time In the future We will find that Newton's law does not work And in fact that is what has been found At the level of fundamental particles There we need quantum physics And even at the level of Cosmic movements Cosmic bodies There we need what? Einsteinian relativity So to give a technical I will give a simple example Of how induction Can go wrong Suppose there is some life On some other planets And those people send an alien over here On planet earth To do some reconnaissance To find out what is the nature of people on earth And That those people come to On planet earth They come to the Conference hall of Radha Vrindavan Chandra temple And there is an alien behind Hovering And that alien Observes Takes a sample At 9 o'clock I take a sample What is the nature of people over here At 9.10 I take another sample 9.30 I take another sample And from 9 to 12 Takes 18 samples Increase the frequency 10 times Every minute if he takes samples He gets 180 samples And then he thinks 180 samples are very good And then he goes back And he reports I observed planet earth And I found that the population of planet earth Is males Between the age of 20 and 40 Now is that correct The observation Is correct The inference is wrong So induction Is itself unreliable Because we may get future observations Which contradict it So now most of what we call as laws of science They are based on induction Now I am not saying induction is wrong Induction itself Is not always reliable But When science Talks about origins When science talks about origin of life Origin of consciousness Origin of human beings Science doesn't even use induction It uses another form of reasoning called abduction Abduction is not Kidnapping Abduction Abductive reasoning What is this They call it IBE Inference to the best explanation Inference to the best explanation So this is what is normally used By By detectives and the police To find out The cause of a crime For example There is a private Secluded room In which you find The owner murdered Now If you see when there is induction used In induction the same thing can be Repeated to find out the pattern Now if somebody is murdered The scientific Police cannot repeat the murder To see who is murdered It is an event that has already happened So then what do they do Then they infer This knife went to the stomach At what angle At what force has it gone Did it just fall accidentally on his stomach and kill him Or was it Forcefully inserted in the stomach They find ok it was forcefully inserted Then it is not an accident It is an intentional murder Then they will observe ok how many doors does it have Ok it has one door And through one door Then how all people came over here They may look at the footsteps If they have some CCTV or some other security Vigilance cameras Then they say who will find out who all came Ok three people came And two of them were just small children Those children could not have inserted the knife With this much force Then third suspect And they find that ok This suspect he came in He has enough strength to insert the force Then they ask this third suspect What time did you come, what time did you go And then you find with the post mortem of the crime And then you find ok this Person was killed The wound was put in the stomach between 5.30 to 6 And this suspect has also come in the range of 5.30 to 6 At 5.15 he entered into the room And at 6.15 he left from the room Then what happens by a series Of inferences We come to a conclusion this person is a murderer Now This is called as abduction This form of reasoning Or inference to best explanation Now the inference to best explanation It can stand in a court of law But it is never Definitive Because who knows you know That room may have some secret Trap door And somebody else came from there And that person murdered that Victim and this person was just there And in a fright he ran away at that time Because he thought I will be caught So many possibilities are there And there are all the detective stories Like say Hardy Boys or Sherlock Holmes Or whatever Generally one of the thing is how the apparent Suspect is not the actual criminal That's what they say So the point is inference to best Explanation Is not really As scientifically authoritative As deduction or even Induction In fact it is not scientific it is operational Which is used in crime And other fields But when scientist have to study About the past About historical Events which have happened And which cannot be replicated So at that time They cannot use induction They have to use what? Abduction So for example What happened thousands of years ago Or millions of years ago What can scientist do? They just infer this factor, this factor This factor, this factor and therefore This is likely to be the explanation Inference to the best explanation So now Even mainstream scientist Acknowledge that Abduction is not as authoritative as Induction And certainly not as authoritative as deduction So again Sometimes we become dazzled By the working of technology Oh you know I just press one button and then I can talk With anybody anywhere in the world So much science has advanced Earlier you had to write a letter and then post The letter and after several days it will go Now I just type on a computer Anywhere any part of the world and within Few seconds person in America Can get it Science has advanced so much Science gives me such knowledge How can science be wrong? Now what are we doing is If scientists say that the world has come From a big bang, if we have come from monkeys If life has come from chemicals, how can they be wrong? No, here what are we doing? If we think like this We are making a category mistake What is the category mistake? We, now science Where it works If you see the principles of electronics The principles of semiconductor Effect or whatever They are all inductive So we should not Mistake That the knowledge acquired from induction We should not mistake That the respect We have for knowledge from induction Should also be given to the knowledge from abduction Is this point clear? So the theory of evolution Or the big bang theory or all such theories They have all come from abduction They are all Inference to best explanations And scientists really don't know How things happen Even if you look seriously at scientific works Scientists say that We have practically no evidence For the change of one species to another species Even evolutionists Admit this, I have got a whole PPT Of evolutionists Prominent evolutionists Telling how the missing links Are still missing And there are prominent biochemist scientists Saying that we just have no Explanation of how life can ever come From chemicals So when we talk about origins We should always take science Scientific theories With more than a pinch of salt We shouldn't assume that they are as Authoritative as those scientific theories Which are abductive Which are inductive So science can be wrong And the wrongness of science Is acknowledged not only by scientists But it is all the more prone to be wrong Because of the method that science Uses for studying history So science can be wrong And second is Science can be incomplete Incomplete means You get a particular Understanding but that understanding May not be complete So for example the big bang theory Now initially When Atheists wanted to misappropriate Science For propagating atheism Basically there have been two theories About the universe The universe Started at some point Or the universe has always been as it is Like the universe has always Been as it is Then there is no need for a creator So that was called the steady state Theory or the static universe Theory and initially Atheists championed that theory So then you can just do away with the creator But subsequently As research mounted There was a cosmic background noise And there was a phenomenon of the Expanding galaxies By which it became almost undeniable scientifically That the universe is expanding And at that time there are many eminent Scientists, this was in the 1980s Roughly, they said you know The fact that the universe Is expanding, that the universe has A beginning, this is Evidence for the existence of a god This is the evidence For existence of god Because the universe has a beginning, it requires a beginner And At that time The big bang theory The big bang theory was a name that was given derisively But it stuck But the point was the big bang theory Actually points very strongly Towards the existence of god Because it implies That there is a beginner But subsequently What the atheists did is They said that Ok, the big bang came about But then everything came by chance It just exploded Boom, exploded and everything came about By chance And from that big bang, everything has come about Right now, the way we are, by chance And that's how they tried to Do away with god Now of course that doesn't explain How did whatever was existing before the big bang Where did it come from And where did it explode But just putting aside that question They said from there everything came by chance But then even if we accept The big bang cosmology Attentively for the sake of argument What we find is, scientists themselves Have acknowledged that the level Of precision that is required From the big bang Event To come to now Their precision is so much That it cannot have come by chance I'll just give two examples quickly to illustrate this point You know If whatever matter was originally there Boom, it exploded So now when it explodes There are two forces acting One is the explosive force, which is going to throw everything apart And then there is the Contracting force, that is the force of gravity Which is going to drag everything back So now the explosive force And the contracting force Have to be very Delicately and precisely balanced If the contracting force Is very strong, then that explosion Will implode And will just sink back into singularity And there will be no universe and no question of life at all Now if the Explosive force is extremely Strong Then the remnants of the explosion Will just whizz away So fast from each other That there will be no opportunity for the particles To coagulate, to form fundamental Particles, to form atoms To form chemicals, to form Nebulae, to form stars And to eventually create an environment Suitable for life So the explosive And the expanding and the contracting Force have to be Very delicately balanced So scientists give the example They call it that Suppose somebody is at the bottom Of a well, and that person throws a ball Out of the well So now, if the person throws the ball Forcefully, then the ball will just go Out of the well If the person throws the ball Very loosely With very little strength, then it falls back into the well But now, if the ball has to be thrown In such a way, that it comes And just rests On the sill of the well Without falling inside Without falling outside Now how much precision will be required? That kind of precision Is required For the big bang For Going from the big bang To come to a place Where matter Can arrange itself How matter arranges itself is an entirely different question But just to have The background for matter arranging itself So much is required So this sort of Precise effects that are required They are called as Fine tuning, the cosmic fine tuning And researchers have found Over 90 factors like this Which If they had not been there Life itself would not have been possible So what is happening over here? This is We accept The scientific theory of big bang From the scriptural point of view We know that there is Mahavishnu And from his bodily pores, universes come out And when they come out, they expand So that principle Of expansion Of universe coming From a small point And then expanding And there is initially a Investment of energy, a charge of energy Mahavishnu glances And he injects kala and then things start expanding So all that Is not necessarily contradictory But big bang cosmology Is incomplete In terms of the idea that From that initial explosion everything can come about By itself So these 90 factors That are there 90 is what scientists have found out right now Many more may be also found out As scientists study more and more So what happens by these factors It's like If any of these factors go wrong If the universe has not Exploded the proper force If the balance between the nuclear Strong force and the nuclear weak force Is not exactly precise If the ratio of gravity With respect to other forces is not exactly Accurate. So many factors If they are not accurate, then life Itself will not be possible Or to speak of complex life, human beings So each of these factors Is like what Suppose somebody is playing a game of dice And what is at stake In the game of dice is a person's life Itself Then Life is itself at stake If it falls six, then you live If it falls anything else, you die If you toss once, it falls six Hey, lucky guy Survive Toss second time, it falls six Third time, it falls six What's wrong? You start looking at the dice. Is it six all sides? Or what? Isn't it? Fourth time it falls six Ninety time it falls six What will you say? Something is wrong over here This dice is not just falling naturally Somebody is controlling it Isn't it? The same way, if everything that is required For life, that is just precisely arranged That means things are not Come automatically There is, for this cosmic fine-tuning There is a fine-tuner And that Fine-tuner is God So the Big Bang cosmology is not necessarily Incorrect, it is incomplete So even if the universe Has come about like that There has to be Divine origin and there has to be Divine supervision The original matter It has to come from someone, somewhere That is God Whatever way the universe came about It has to be supervised By the divine being So in this way we can understand That science can be incomplete That's why there doesn't have to be contradictions Now, what about when Science and The scriptures give very contradictory Things So then, what it means is That they are observing from Different scales This especially is true with respect to Vedic cosmology So I talked about how science May be incomplete or incorrect I talked about extrapolation, you remember? The alien example of So now, see what happens is Science just gives me By scientific observation I get three examples Or three points, sample data But then through that three sample data By just adjusting the points a little bit here and there Everybody does that sort of adjustment So, we can get So many different Graphs So all these are what? Non-scientific extrapolation Of scientific data So, this error Can come even with induction This error can come Even with induction Where there is a finite sample Then what to speak of With abduction where there is only one sample Isn't it? If the universe came out by Big bang, that just happened once You just have one point and you have to Find out how it came about If you just have one point How many graphs can be drawn to that one point? Infinite practically And we can never be certain about it So, repeatability Predictability These are fundamental features of science Which cannot be applied To the question of origins And that's why We shouldn't take The answer which Scientists give about origins Very seriously Because they don't have much scientific credibility Let's go to the point of Origin of universe, origin of life So now how science and Architecture can see from two different perspectives With respect to Vedic cosmology So let's start with a Simple Experiment which any of us can do Now if I just take Chalk and coal And I ground both to powder And now I have white powder And black powder, I mix the two I get grey powder Now if I observe the grey powder In a microscope What do I see? I don't see grey powder I see white and black granules Now what is it actually? Is it A grey powder Or is it white and black granules? Both are true Isn't it? It depends on the scale of observation Means at a fundamental level it is white and black particles But then you can go further down And you go down from white black particles To fundamental particles And then we'll find that we just have Mesons and neutrinos And things which have no colour No taste, no fragrance, nothing So What we call As Scientific observation Or observation of any kind That will depend on the scale of Observation So Just as within science itself Different scales of observation Can give completely different results And We could have two groups of people saying This is grey powder, no this is White and black Just argue, argue, argue And you could have a war over that But it's not required, just understand the principle of different observations Similarly We can have This Scriptures observe From a different scale of observation And Science observes from a different scale of observation So with respect to cosmology The scriptures observe from a higher dimension Higher level, a divine scale of observation See the Bhagavatam And it gives us information accordingly Now even within the Vedic tradition Even within the Indian wisdom tradition There are cosmological knowledge Comes from two main sources So There are the Puranas Which give us a higher, they are observed from a higher Perspective, that is divine perspective And there are Jyotish Shastras Which Jyotish normally we use the word For Astrology But Astrology Is connected with Astronomy You cannot do Astrology without at least basic knowledge of Astronomy So Jyotish Shastras are not just about Making Bhavishyamani about what will happen in future But they also involve Knowledge about Cosmogony and Astronomy So now The Jyotish Shastras give a human Perspective And they There is a Surya Siddhanta and other books like that And they Give information which is similar to that Found in modern Cosmology Now for example now Surya Siddhanta tells us That the distance Between the earth And celestial body which we see There, so that is This distance is 253,000 miles That's what Surya Siddhanta says And what we have, modern measurement is It is 252,710 miles Now we see It's tremendous agreement and if we look at the Orbits of the celestial bodies We'll find that Their Orbits are not Precisely spherical That is what initially was believed by The Astronomers who had followed Ptolemy But Newton also tried to give Spherical orbits But eventually they found that the orbits are elliptical So this margin of change Is easily understandable It's accommodatable entirely within our understanding of science So what happens Now if these Ancient books were simply mythological Then how did they get such precise knowledge They didn't have any Telescopes as far as we know At that time So that means there is knowledge which is Not only complementary to science It is As good as science, greater than science also Available in the scriptures Similar Surya Siddhanta also talks about the earth's diameter 7840 miles Compared to the modern measurement 7926.7 miles So again very similar Very identical So now if we see the Vedic scriptures give knowledge from the human perspective also So this is knowledge in the first category That which agrees with science Because that is observed from the human perspective But when we go to the Divine perspective Then things become different So now with respect to For example There is this idea that Did man go to the moon or did man not go to the moon Now if we see When Ishwara Prabhupada Made this point Ishwara Prabhupada's emphasis Was something very distinct His point was Why can man not go to the moon Because it's a higher planet Because it's a higher planet And we need to have The proper karmic qualifications To go there Now if we just observe From the completely naturalistic perspective What karmic qualifications This is one planet over here This is another planet over there I just get some capacity to move some spacecraft I'll go there So then you may see Prabhupada is talking about some very different dynamics Over there So what actually happened You know when we talk about The moon The moon and the Chandraloka Are not just literally Entirely the same Chandraloka is a higher planetary system It's described in Vedic cosmology That Actually we human beings I don't have that example over here Of Adhikar See Adhikar means qualification So What are the three possibilities Humans went to a 3D projection of Chandraloka I'll explain what that means Or there is a high tech diversion And humans went somewhere else But they thought they had gone to the moon And third is they did not go out of the planet earth only Now we can't Which of these three happened We can't know for sure But let's look at these three options See the Vedic scriptures describe That there is a concept of Adhikar Adhikar means qualification So suppose there is a Huge computer And Like a mainframe computer On which many people are working So there is one machine and many terminals on it And now It's routine in organizations That there are different Levels of access given To different people So A clerk may just have access for entering data In one small part of the Memory of that computer Then a person who is at a higher level of authority May have bigger access And in the person who is beyond May be the CEO, this person has complete access The owner has complete access So just as all of them Are at the same machine But they are not Seeing Same thing in the computer One person may just see E drive Another person may see E drive and D drive Another person may see E drive, D drive, C drive Now From there, what is happening over here? Why is the perception different? Because the level of access that is given is different So scriptures describe that Similarly This cosmos, our perception Depends On the level of access that is given to us And If we don't have the appropriate karmic qualification We don't get the right access In fact, what to speak of going to Chandraloka It is described, if you look at the Ramayana In the Mahabharata That even when the devatas come to earth At that time When the yajnas are performed And devatas come to receive the sacrifice It's not always That the devatas Are seen by the manavas So The Ramayana describes that If If the manavas Are able to see the devatas Then that sacrifice is considered To be exceptionally glorious Because the devatas are so pleased with it That they are giving Access They are granting their vision to others So other times also There are other symptoms When the sacrifice completes properly There are other symptoms given In the associated books Scriptural texts To describe how the sacrifice is successful So, even if devatas come on earth If they don't give us access We can't perceive their presence So what then to speak of If we somehow go to the moon We may go to the moon But if we don't have access We will not be able to see Then what do we see When we look at the sky We see Chandraloka We see the moon But what is that moon That moon is simply a projection It's a 3D projection Of Chandraloka What does a 3D projection mean So The moon is a higher planet And it exists at a higher level So there are multiple dimensions It's a different scale of existence And that Just as if I have a 3D object And I project it in 2D Then what happens I can't get all its features I'll get only some of its features Similarly Let's say Understand the example Suppose a person Has a map of Mumbai A map Is a projection Of a geographical reality There is a city called Pune There is a city called Mumbai And a map is a projection So when we have a projection It gives us some understanding Of what it is But there is a big difference In the sense that When if I just move my finger From Pune to Mumbai Do I experience Mumbai No There is some correlation between Pune and Mumbai But there is a huge difference also So a map is a 2D projection of a multi-dimensional reality It's not just 3 dimensions Or 4 dimensions There are human beings there who have consciousness Which is beyond our conception of 3 or 4 dimensions So it's a rich reality Now suppose Let's take this example further And I have used a map And That map has told me How to go to Mumbai to meet my friend So it says You go straight by this highway Then you will come to a cross Go left, go right Two forks will come, you should go left And then you go forward You will come to a flyover Then you will come to a bridge Then you will come to a ghat And you just take it Take the narrow path Now everything that is Given in the map It comes out right And as it comes out right, my faith increases And I move forward So I say I move from here And I go to Mumbai And I go to 7KM Munshi Marg Where Radha Gopinath temple is there And there I am supposed to meet a devotee And then when I go to the Devotee's room I knock on the door And he opens the door And I look at my map My map does not describe you He says you don't exist What ridiculous If just because My map has served me Very well In going through the journey That does not mean the map is an exhaustive source of knowledge Now If anybody observes me saying that Because my map is so reliable And now my map is Map does not describe you Therefore you don't exist They will say it is your intelligence that does not exist Use your common sense So like that We Our cosmological understanding May be reliable in its own way But it does not give the exhaustive description Of the cosmos Because Our We have limited access And we Even if we go by a spacecraft We will just go through 3D space And there also what we will see is 3D projection of Moon As the moon that we see Without access From Chandradev and other people We will not be able to see what is happening over there So in that sense The important point is That There is no contradiction necessarily Between what science is saying and what scripture is saying Now also it is possible That there could be some diversion And the scientists thought that they went to the moon But they went somewhere else Or there are some conspiracy theorists who talk about How Actually They were just in one particular part of the earth And that's where the experiments were done And scientists actually did not go out of the earth only They just created a high tech hoax There are books also written by scientists And there are serious arguments about that Especially about the first Apollo mission But Overall Even if scientists As I said now which of these three is true Did scientists go to moon but Experienced 3D projection Did they go to the moon and experienced 3D projection Did they Have a high tech diversion, they went somewhere else Or they didn't go out of the earth at all Now See we know By deduction that 3 plus 7 is 10 But If somebody tells us that We did 3 plus 7 And I did not get the answer of 10 Now unless We get to see what did the person think And what did the person do Now we can't know for sure What answer that person got and why that person got the answer What we know is that the person's answer is wrong 3 plus 7 3 plus 7 should have come out 10 It has not come out means that the person has done something wrong So similarly The scriptures describe Chandraloka as a higher planet And it's filled with heavenly inhabitants So if those inhabitants Have not been experienced By our journey to the moon What it means is something has gone wrong So now If 3 plus 7 is not 10 Now the possibilities are actually many That person may have got 11 Or that person may have got 9 Or that person may have got whatever For some miscalculation So like that which has happened That will require research which is difficult And often dangerous Because those who are having their vested interest They will not reveal what has happened But the important point here is That there can be many scenarios Where the Vedas and the scriptures They are not They are not necessarily contradictory They are simply observing from different scales Of perception So for example Going apart from this moon Now the same can apply to We have Chandrayaan, now we have Mangalayan We have plans to go to the Mars It's the same principle basically Now we will not be able to access The higher dimension of reality Just by physical transportation In fact when Mahabharata describes That even when Arjuna was going northwards And he went towards the heavens So he had mystic powers And even then We wanted to do the Rajasuya Yajna So he wanted to conquer all four directions So when he went Northwards, upwards further And then at one particular point The celestial inhabitants said that Arjuna, you cannot advance over here This is the heavenly lokas So then you don't have to Conquer this to do the Rajasuya Yajna But he said that I want to Have Yudhishthira glorified and Krishna glorified So therefore Will you offer tributes He said yes, we will come and we will offer our tributes To Yudhishthira also And there is no need for you to come, even if you come here You will not be able to see anything over here Because this arena Cannot be seen by The humans, it's a celestial arena So Arjuna Was not just simply geographically going up Northwards, but he was also mystically Travelling upwards So now regarding various other Things which seem to be contradictory So for example, sometimes it's said that The Sun Is closer to the earth Than the moon Sun is closer to the earth Than the moon So let's see what this exactly means There is When the Vedic scriptures talk about things They are not simply talking about Geographical or cosmological Distances Now there is the whole concept of Karmic Or ethical dimension Our Understanding of the universe can sometimes be so Naive, now people say that Where is heaven? Swarga upar hai But then, if the earth is round And India, if somebody says Swarga upar hai, it points in one direction If America, somebody says heaven is above It points in another direction So if the heaven is above, which Direction is it? What does above mean? You know if you have Britain or Europe Swarga is here, so where is it actually? So that above Is not a simplistic geographical above It's a karmic or ethical above It's a Completely different dimension There is in the Vedic scriptures A vertical dimension to the cosmology Which is determined by Karma And that, because it's higher dimensional We can't perceive it So this particular figure Which is talked about, it is based on Karmic dimensions, so let's understand this now So Vedic literature Are based on The evolution of consciousness of the Residents of the cosmos So the heavenly residents are above Above means what? They are on top of our heads Their consciousness is also higher And the vertical dimension is there And planets are placed in a hierarchy According to the level of consciousness Of the residents So now let's consider the example It's flat A on the ground floor Flat B is on the 20th floor Of the next adjacent building And it's flat C Is on the 3rd floor of another building Far away from flat A This is what is described Now Flat A ground floor Flat B 20th floor of adjacent building Flat C 3rd floor of a Building far away Now from the Now what is this? Flat A is like the earth Flat B Is like the moon Flat C Is like the sun So From the point of view of Karmic dimensions If you want to take from the point of view If you are only going to calculate vertical heights Then what happens? Which is higher? The moon is higher But we don't have access to that vertical dimension We only have Access to physical distance And in terms of the distance Which is further away? Sun So in that sense There is no contradiction There is a different scale of perception That is involved And we don't have to become unnecessarily disturbed by such things Now same way with respect to eclipses Now eclipses Science says that they happen Because the earth, sun and moon Come in a linear dimension They come together in one line And that's why the eclipses happen Now that's true at one level In the sense that What happens is That These effects These three come together And they produce the effect That is a scientific explanation Scientific explanation Is In its way, it is adequate But there are other dynamics involved Now if you see The scriptures also describe Rahu and Ketu Not just simplistically as Some rakshasas with Big mouths and they Sun and moon are going inside them Now in some Simplistic depictions in some movies Or in some cartoons That way things may be depicted But it is clearly mentioned That this Rahu and Ketu Are also Planets And Rahu and Ketu are the heads Of those planets They are heads of those planets And the scriptures also give The Locations Of these planets And if we do calculation According to Their location and according to The positions of the earth and the sun and the moon Then Considering Rahu and Ketu as the cause I won't go into technicalities There are nodes and anti-nodes There are technical terms over there A simple point is That with the Vedic calculations Also Eclipses can be predicted accurately So Now if Rahu and Ketu Are just mythological creations Then how would For millennia Astrology is quite a well-developed Science Within the Vedic tradition Or a well-developed field of knowledge Even if some people do not consider it scientific But still it has to be based on some astronomy So eclipses People want to predict that So that they can do religious activities at that time They can avoid certain activities At that time, they can avoid the Inauspicious influences So for that The timing prediction has to be accurate And the timing has been predicted accurately Historians admit this So Now what does it mean There is its own frame of Perception It's a different way of looking at things And from the cosmology So what happens is When there is the sun, there is the moon And there is the earth, they are one line So it also happens that Rahu and Ketu Also come in that line itself So now Rahu and Ketu Cause the malefic influence See in the Vedic scriptures Things are not Just thought of things Things are also seen in terms of Their effects Things are seen in terms of Their effects What is the effect on consciousness What is the effect that is going to happen So it is described that There is In the cosmos There is an ongoing conflict between good and evil And this conflict between good and evil There are certain times When good triumphs Or good is predominant There are other times when evil predominates And accordingly We human beings Have to adjust ourselves So now it's interesting That Although scientists Deny Any such auspicious or inauspicious Things, but even scientists Admit that there are things Beyond our current conceptions For example Time and time and time again it has been observed That whenever earthquakes occur You know Between 6 to 12 to 18 to 24 hours Time varies The animals in that area start behaving Peculiar Now they either become very silent Or they become very noisy And they slunk down in apprehension And with all Our seismic Sensors Scientists have not been able to predict Earthquakes As accurately As simply observing the animals Can do So now scientists try to find out How is it First thing is Many reductionists, many atheists They say this is just superstition Don't believe that But so many consistent observations have been done By which what is found It always happens Somehow the animals come to know Now again scientists try to reduce Reductionists or materialists They try to reduce everything down You know maybe Actually when the earthquake is going to come Before that There might be some subtle tremors There might be some small tremors And those tremors give some Vibrations And maybe the Brains of the dogs Or the cats Or the rats or whatever They have certain Chemicals, certain parts of the brain Which can sense those chemicals Or the sense Those waves And because of that they are able to understand it Now this is just Piling Speculation upon speculation upon speculation But the Important point is An honest scientist will admit that there is much in the universe That we can't understand So just as this is a simple example There are many things like this There is an experiment called staring experiment Staring experiment means That if I am sitting right in front of me Here And there is a person behind me And that person is told Sometimes you look at this person And other times you don't look at the person And then I have to guess Staring Yes or no Now I don't have eyes in the back of my head So I can't know whether the person Is looking or not So if I were simply guessing Then I would be either right 50% Or wrong 50% of the times But then Consistently Experiments have found That the probability of correctness Is always more than 50% 60% 70% There are some people super sensitive They are 90% correct And I have got a whole video on this In fact BBC Has produced a series of documentaries On What is it called All sorts of paranormal phenomena Scientists Giving mainstream scientific research And they are saying That We have the findings We just don't have the theories to explain it So Alfred Wallace Who was also a co-founder of the theory of evolution But he was not an atheist like Darwin He was a theist And he was a spiritualist So he says So he wrote a whole book I have got an entirely different article about ghosts And scientific understanding of ghosts So I will not go into that But what he says is He studied spirit and mediums like this Communication with spirits and things like that And he spent almost 30 years on that And after that when he compiled it into his book He says I am not asking you for faith In what I have written in this book I am simply asking you For doubt In the infallibility Of your preconceptions Now be doubtful Whether what you already know is infallible Whether it is correct Be open minded And then he gives experiments like that So these theory experiments Well founded they are So what am I trying to make this point over here now This whole idea Now with respect to charcoal And white powder White and grey granules And white and black particles And grey granules I may say that this is something very easy to understand Scale of observation But similarly In the world there are multiple things Which are different scales of observation So with our scale of perception We may not be able to understand how Dogs or cats can sense Arrival of an earthquake Or we may not be able to understand how I can sense All of us will be having this experience Sometimes we feel that somebody Is looking at me, I am sitting here Somebody is looking at me behind And we look around and we see that person is looking And that person suddenly feels shy and looks away You know or whatever That person feels embarrassed that he has been caught staring So this is something which is common So where do we get that With our reductionist science we are not able to understand it There is much more to the universe than such things So same way with respect to Rahu and Ketu What happens is There may be at a cosmological level In terms of physical Obscuring of the light Sun and moon are causing it But beyond that There is an inauspicious influence That comes because Rahu and Ketu Are inauspicious beings They are Asuras And when they come in the line of the Sun, Earth and Moon Then what happens is They cast their influence And the Vedic scriptures focus not on the interaction Of things, they focus on the Influence of the interaction of things What is the influence? So it is an inauspicious period And that inauspicious period is because of the effect of Rahu and Ketu And what do we do? We at the time of eclipses Do certain activities or don't do certain activities By which we can Minimize the malefic influences Minimize the negative influences So To conclude this I will conclude with one last quote Yeah So this is Dr. Abdul Kalam Quoting in His book Ignited Minds Now he actually quotes Two Nobel laureates discussing Albert Einstein recalls what Heisenberg told him See you know in the west We have built a large beautiful ship It has all the comforts in it But one thing is missing It has no compass And it does not know where to go And who is this? These are people who are serious Respected scientists And they are saying That we have to be open minded To recognize the limitations of science And a science based civilization So we don't have a compass So I said what are the problems? Science cannot talk about origin It cannot tell us about purpose It cannot tell us about value Where did we come from? Why do we exist? And why should this be considered right? And why should this be considered wrong? So origin, purpose, value Same thing It has no compass and does not know where it is going Compass is like value Where to go is like purpose So these are fundamental Fundamental things that we need to know And we can know these through scripture Not through science So to summarize I started by talking about First how science Science does not have a monopoly On even material knowledge Or to speak of spiritual knowledge So in that I talked about how Scientism is not a scientific belief It's a different belief system That is misused by people So I talked about how science cannot tell us about purpose Why the mother made a cake Science cannot explain that Then I gave several examples of how Whether the cake is tasty or not Whether an image is beautiful or not Whether this is right or wrong Whether I should poison my grandmother with arsenic or not So these aesthetic and moral things Science cannot tell And then further Naturalism cannot answer all questions Naturalism simply describes The way causes produce effects It doesn't describe It doesn't cause those causes So as I said Laws of motion can predict If a batsman hits a ball whether it will go to six or not Laws of motion don't create the batsman They don't create the bat So naturalism is also inadequate So that means the basic point is Even within if we consider material knowledge to be a circle Within that science offers us Science's role is one circle It's not a complete circle So Einstein's quote that All the sciences, arts and religions Are fruits of the same human tree Then we went to scripture And we discussed that circle Some scripture knowledge that is agrees with science Some contradict science And some transcend science So our focus is primarily on what? That which transcends science That which will purify us That will enable us to get perception of Krishna And then with that which contradicts science In that we discussed in detail Three possibilities Science may be incorrect So we discussed with especially origins Now the method of science is much more unreliable It is neither reduction Nor induction But abduction And abduction also It's very unreliable because there are so many things Like you know if I don't know how many doors Are there in a house Who murdered a person I cannot come to know So millions or billions of years ago What all was happening And how the universe came about Or how life came about There are so many unknowns That I can never surely know So we shouldn't give Just by seeing the impressive technological gadgetry Which is based on scientific knowledge Acquired through induction We should not give the same credibility To speculative scientific theories About origins Which are not obtained by induction But which are obtained only by abduction And then we went forward and discussed About So that means even if there is contradiction Science may be incorrect Or science may be incomplete We discussed how Big Bang cosmology The origin and the subsequent evolution Cannot be explained without Intelligent supervision So that knowledge is incomplete Within Big Bang cosmology And then lastly when there is contradictory That's because of The different scales of perception So the example of whether something is Just a grey powder Or it's white and black granules And with respect to that How does it apply to the universe The universe Is like a mainframe computer And different people are given Different levels of access So even if humans go to the moon Or residents from higher planets Come here, if we don't have the access We will not be able to see them And that's why There is this seeming contradiction So even if we were gone We have simply gone to a 3D projection Like a person Moving a finger on a map from here to there You don't experience the city Of Mumbai By putting the finger on the Mumbai And then lastly we discussed about About other questions Like because of the vertical dimension The sun may appear May seem to be higher The moon may seem to be higher But in terms of our geographical perception The moon is, the sun is further And we discussed how the Vedic scriptures Also give accurate geographical Cosmological distances And dimensions And then lastly we discussed about eclipses And so it's again These two are not contradictory That whether Is it the sun or the moons coming in between That causes eclipse Or is it Rahu and Ketu They are not contradictory They are complementary explanations So complementary because sun and moon also contribute And the sun and moons orbits are also known But complementary because By Rahu and Ketu positions Also eclipses have been predicted And predictions have worked So science talks in terms of Things and their interactions The Scriptures talk in terms of Their effect on consciousness So there we discussed about how There is more to the universe Than what we can perceive The staring experiments And the seismic sensitivity that animals have And lastly we concluded that Again going back to the basic point This quote of Abdul Kalam saying that Essentially Questions of value and purpose We cannot get knowledge based on science We need alternative source of knowledge And that's what scripture offers us Thank you very much for your kind attention So now Should I start the questions Do you want to comment something Quickly now Let's go over the questions So why black holes exist Are they mentioned in the Vedic scriptures So first point is That The Vedic scriptures Are Focused on a particular Purpose If we want to Just get knowledge Everything, every item of knowledge Can be expanded unlimitedly If I just want to study This mic stand I can do a whole PhD on Mic stand design What should be the weight, what should be the angular alignment What should be the composition What should be the shine What should be the acoustic qualities So many things I can do So it is not necessary that the Vedic scriptures Have to give us all knowledge About everything So As I said that there is a different way Of looking at the universe Within the Vedic scriptures And within the modern cosmological science Therefore The concepts like black holes And things like that which are Seen from the perspective Of modern science They are theoretical conceptions Which grow With a particular world view Now here I will have to go a little deeper into science Now when I say they are theoretical Conceptions That doesn't mean that I am saying that black holes don't exist The simple point I am making is That Theoretical conceptions Are basically Inferences Inferences that stand within a particular theory So For example There was a phlogiston theory of combustion In the history of science The idea was Why are certain objects combustible Because there was something called phlogiston And that caused combustion And like that There are many theories At that time those theories worked also But in subsequent research found that Actually it doesn't work There is something wrong over here And they come to some other things So within this particular theoretical framework Certain things may work But when there is an entirely different theoretical framework It doesn't work For example if you go into quantum physics Then according to quantum physics there are no particles only Ultimately there is Just waves And there is just waves So you know Neil Bohr was a prominent proponent of Quantum physics And Einstein was a proponent of another theory Relativity And initially they were very close friends But eventually they became really hostile enemies Why? Because Einstein just couldn't digest the idea That there are no solid particles That there are just waves Einstein made a famous statement I believe that the moon still exists When I am not looking at it So obviously it exists But according to quantum theory The observed reality Is determined by the observer So basically They couldn't reconcile They remained very hostile to each other So the point which I am making is Within the Quantum physics way of looking at things There are no particles There are simply waves existing So how does it work? Within that framework it works But that framework Doesn't explain consciousness That framework doesn't explain emotions That framework doesn't explain How Newton's laws of motion work It's a different framework completely So same way The black holes are Within a particular perspective They play a particular function So they are theoretical conceptions In the theoretical perspective Particular way of looking at the world And the Vedic scriptures look at the universe From a different way So that's why we don't have to have The two scales of perception may not intersect So that's why the concept of black holes specifically Is not mentioned in the Vedic scriptures But we have to understand this concept Is an outgrowth of a particular Way of looking at the universe And the scriptures offer a different way of looking at the universe Now this is related to the next question Is all the material knowledge and technology That we have today Mentioned in the Vedas Answer is This depends on what we mean by the word Veda There are three Different meanings of the word Veda We can have a restrictive meaning We can have a normal meaning And we can have an expansive meaning Restrictive meaning Means the word Veda Refers to the four Vedas Rig Veda, Saam Veda, Yudha Veda, Atharva Veda And the Vedas have four divisions within them Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads And Samhitas primarily So now if we look at If we look at this restrictive definition Then These are themselves very profound But they are limited They all have 1000-2000 verses Each of them have different number of verses But then that is a finite body of knowledge And what that contains That also has many significant things For example there are references to airplanes There are references to ships There are references to missiles So quite an advanced Civilization Is evident even in the Vedas But It is one finite body of knowledge The general term The standard way the word Veda is used Is the Vedas Four Vedas and along with that The other literature That also explain the Vedas So there is Sruti and Smriti So Smriti is also considered Vedic In terms of essential meaning So In Krishna consciousness when we use the word Veda We don't just refer to the four Vedas We refer to the Veda, Sruti and Smriti together This is the normal way it is used Now beyond that there is the expansive meaning The expansive meaning is The word Veda refers To knowledge itself So Krishna says Krishna says that All knowledge Comes from me So in that generic sense of the word Veda Whatever knowledge Whoever has that Is included within Veda So we shouldn't think of Veda Just as some ancient scripture Which has some knowledge Even the knowledge that science is developing now That is also Veda So this is the generic Understanding when we say When some places the statements are there that All branches of knowledge are there in the Veda What does it mean? It means Veda is a generic term Being referred to To refer to all forms of knowledge Because that is the literal Sanskrit meaning of the word Veda This is the This is the most expansive meaning But apart from that expansive meaning There is There is much knowledge in the Vedas Which was originally there But which is not accessible now For example There is a Vimana Shastra Which describes about Vimanas Construction of Vimanas And utilization of the Vimanas And there is the Ramayana which describes say The Pushpaka Vimana Now if we see That Vimana is described As operating in a set of different principles When Pushpaka is flying The Ramayana doesn't say there is a tail of smoke behind it Why? Because it was not using combustion And principles like that So there are Different ways of interacting With the universe See Modern science focuses primarily On On The interaction of things And trying to understand Based on that how things happen But where Science, where materialistic science Or natural science Sees just the interaction Of forces and objects According to laws The Vedic world view Sees the actions Of conscious beings Behind those Interactions of things Simple example How many of you know about Billiards as a game Ok almost everyone So billiards is basically played on a table And on a table there are balls And there are sticks Which are used to hit the balls Now If you look at the billiards game The billiards game And what happens in that game Can be reasonably described Using Newton's laws of motion Why did this ball Go into that hole Because this stick Came and hit this ball at this angle With this force And this ball hit this ball And this ball hit that ball And that ball went into the hole So now If we see from the point of view of physics We will be able to explain Why that ball went into hole Or why that ball missed the hole Whatever happened on the table can be explained But that explanation Is it complete Yes the stick hit that ball At that angle is true But there is a player Who is skillful And who moved the stick in such a way That it hit the ball At that angle at that force So if somebody says I will observe only the table And I will not observe anything beyond table Then I may infer The laws of motion and confer The laws of motion But I will not get the complete understanding So similarly Natural science or material science The way science is developed today It focuses primarily On things It doesn't focus on The conscious beings who are Behind the things And that's why There are two different ways of looking at things And these two ways The expertise of the billiards player And The laws of motion They are not contradictory They are complementary That is There is an expert player who hit the ball That is also true And the ball went to the hole because of the laws of motion That is also true So what happens is When the vedic scriptures describe They are not just simply describing Principles of combustion by which We can cause a plane to move in the air They are looking at Okay There is vayudeva Who causes motion within the space And there are various devatas Ultimately the supreme lord is controlling So if a person does the appropriate Kind of Yajnas, tapasya Or does the appropriate kind of Punya, then that person is able to Connect with the Higher beings of the universe And by connecting with the higher Beings in the universe One can Get access To the forces that They control And that is how The plane will move Not just by mechanical principles The plane will move By mystical principles Which are not mystical in the sense of Just being not comprehensible But is a different way of comprehending them So the vedas do have advanced Knowledge but because We human beings in Kali Yuga Are karmically disqualified We cannot access the higher dimensions Most of the yajnas that were done In the past, they are almost impossible to do In this age and that's why People stay Away, so we cannot access Much of the technology but still Vedic mathematics Or Vastu or Ayurveda Are the many branches of knowledge Which are more and more being accessed And not just by the Krishna conscious movement but even Mainstream society today Indian government and many Indian researchers They are trying to access This knowledge, so for example They call it IKS Indian knowledge systems So through Indian knowledge systems How can we have sustainable Development, how can we have advanced Technology, so that study is going on So as that study goes on Then more and more findings May also come up, so to summarize It's not that All knowledge when we say Is a product of a particular world view So science, the knowledge That it is given now It is growing from a particular world view That is centered on Observing the world Simply as the interaction of things And forces based on natural laws But the scriptures Don't necessarily look in that way They may also look in that way As I said mathematics is also advanced in the Vedic literature but They look at it in a different way Essentially they give us the knowledge Of how to live in the world So for example Not just spiritual knowledge of how to live In terms of going back to the spiritual world But also how to live in this world So we need knowledge of mechanics We need knowledge of medicine We need knowledge of architecture So there is knowledge like this So in principle Whatever knowledge we live We need for living that was Available in the Vedic Upashakas Around the Vedas There was material knowledge also that was available And it was available But that knowledge may not be available now For several reasons One is that Because we are karmically unqualified for it Or because of thousands of years of Foreign Vedas some of the books are lost Or the books are incomprehensible But still there is much knowledge that is Still reclaimable And there is research that is slowly Bringing that knowledge to light Does that answer the question? So What exactly are dreams? Is it not possible that Whatever we are doing now is also a dream And scriptures also Are a part of that dream Interesting So what exactly Are dreams? So In the Govinda Bhashya Which is a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra By Shlaballi Vidyabhushan He does an elaborate analysis Of dreams And he describes firstly Are dreams real or false? Normally when we say It's a dream that means we say it's false But then He says that Actually Dreams also have Their own pattern In terms of what? In some dreams Things happen chaotically But in some dreams There is some sort of sense and order In which things are happening also I try to go here, I try to do this And then I face this obstacle And somebody is dreaming that I am riding on a magnificent royal horse I am a prince And I am going to meet a princess And then there is a villain who is trying to take away the princess And then I fight with him So There may be fanciful dreams like that Now I may find that actually I am riding on a horse That is golden And then there is a princess Who is made of diamond So now what has happened Prabhupada explains That many times what we see in the dream Is a combination So Many of our So We may have seen a Gold And we may have seen a horse So we superimpose Those two images in our dream And then we see a Golden horse over there So in some cases our dreams may be Concatenations Superimpositions Of two different Images that we have perceived here But beyond that How do dreams have their own Order Normally in some dreams We are spectators In some dreams We are participants We just see something Happening in some place Sometimes we are ourselves acting in that But then if you look at dreams In most dreams Like in real life We are not the controllers of everything Something happens How is it happening I will deal with it So that means that If the dreams were just entirely products of our imagination And in our imagination We would like to be the controllers completely But we are not controllers In fact some people have dreams which are nightmares And their nightmares are often The opposite of what we would want If we were controllers Isn't it So Baldevi Debhushan explains That the Dukha and Sukha That we get Is ultimately a result of our karma Result of our karma So just as in this life Some people are born healthy Some people are born sickly Why is that It is because of karma So this world is made of gross matter And through the things Made of gross matter At a level of gross reality Karmic reactions are given to us And this world is ultimately Controlled by the Supreme Lord Similarly the dream world Is ultimately controlled by the Supreme Lord And through the dream world The reactions To some minor karmas Are given Through a reality that is made of subtle matter So why do certain people get nightmares Because They have done certain bad karma Because of the bad karma that they have done They get certain reactions In terms of The sufferings that they get So in that sense that is how we get dreams Some people get good dreams Why because they have done some good karma So now that does not necessarily mean that Dreams have some predictive value And they are real or not Simply means that dreams can give us reactions Now going further Is this world like a dream Or is the dream like this world We can go both ways So please show this So this is good enough I have another figure which is not there in this PPT But The soul is the source of consciousness Now when the soul's consciousness Comes out Through the subtle body Through the gross body to the outer world That is the waking state That is the state Which we all of us are in Hopefully That is the Jagruti stage Now in some cases That consciousness of the soul Comes out To the subtle body But it doesn't go out to the gross body That is the state of Sapna That is the state of dream The consciousness is there But it is directed only to the level of subtle body Not to the level of gross body That's why in our dreams normally We are not conscious of other things that are happening Now of course if there is a major disturbance At the level of gross reality Then the consciousness is Dragged to the gross level The alarm rings Somebody sprinkles water Then what happened They jolted out But at that time the consciousness is withdrawn So of course Till now another of the unanswered questions In science is Why do we sleep So at one level we know it is for resting of the gross body But what exactly happens How do we sleep Why do we sleep, how do we sleep Like all of us have the experience Sometimes we lie down to sleep And not able to sleep only And sometimes we don't want to sleep and we feel sleepy So sleep is not Something which is entirely in our control And it is not entirely scientifically comprehensible Because there is a higher reality which is over there Which is Actually The consciousness Is withdrawn from the gross body To subtle body and that time softness is there Now when the consciousness is withdrawn Even from the subtle body And is kept only in the soul That is a state of deep Dreamless sleep, it is called Sushupti And beyond that There is a Further level of consciousness Now this is matter entirely When the consciousness is directed Entirely towards spirit That is called Spirit Samadhi Or it is called Turiya And Turiya is the higher spiritual reality And that spiritual reality Is the top most reality So In one sense Our dream state Jagruti and Swapna Are similar Why are they similar? Because both are temporary Now we are at a particular level Of reality now But after 60-70 years when we die This reality will no longer be reality for us We will be in an entirely different state So one reason why we call dreams as unreal Is because they end But while they are going on they seem real for us Similarly While we are living in this world, this world seems real for us And when I say seems real Doesn't mean it is not real It is real, we are also real But our identification with the world is not real Our thinking that I am a body I am a person who belongs to this world That is not real So the difference however Between Swapna and Jagruti Is that In Jagruti alone I can Consciously Exercise my Svecha So I can consciously Exercise my free will And turn towards God In Swapna sometimes it may happen But Swapna is often disorganized That's why For our spiritual sadhana and for our spiritual Purification and advancement Which is most important Jagruti So we don't minimize this conscious state and say this is just like a dream How do we know this world is real? We know this world is real Because it is made of the Material energy of Krishna And it offers us an opportunity to Return ultimately to the Higher spiritual reality And that's how We understand this world is real Does this answer the question? So now How many of you are interested in ghosts? Ok I'll explain that now Ha ha ha Quite a Discussion of ghosts is ghastly But still it is very interesting So now How a person becomes a ghost? Hmm So what happens is if you see earlier The soul is present In the body So there is a gross body And there is a subtle body Now when we die normally what happens? The gross body is left behind It becomes dead on the departure of the soul And then the subtle body And the soul go to the next body Or they basically go out of the body And depending on the Karma the person will get a Next body Is it clear? But if a person commits suicide And destroys the body prematurely Then by karma that person is not supposed to get A next body immediately So then the soul has to Wander in a disembodied state Disembodied state means Without a gross body The subtle body is there Now because the subtle body has subtle powers Therefore it can act In ways that are mysterious That's why sometimes you may see in movies About ghosts Now there is no one but suddenly the door opens Or there is no one Suddenly somebody is beating a drum or making some sounds Or whatever So they don't, the ghosts don't need Physical They don't They don't necessarily act the way we act At a physical level And that's why they appear very mysterious Very eerie, very bizarre Now There is another phenomena called as There are houses Which we say are haunted And there are people who are possessed That means haunted means what? In a particular house there is a ghost living Now few things Are as dangerous for a real estate agent A real estate agent who wants to sell a house As the rumor That his house is haunted Nobody wants to take it So what Prabhupada did is In the initial days of ISKCON Devotees did not have much Financial resources So old buildings Which had reputation of being haunted They could be sold at very cheap rates So devotees would purchase that And there is a ghost And Prabhupada would tell devotees Just do Hare Krishna over there And it is a strong kirtan they would do And when they would do kirtan The ghost exists at the level of mode of ignorance There is ignorance, passion, goodness And there is transcendence So why do they Exist at the level of ignorance? Because destroying one's body Is an act of ignorance So Because they have chosen to live in ignorance Hurting one's body Destroying one's body is an act of ignorance Causing any form of destruction Is usually an act of ignorance They live in ignorance And transcendence is Completely contradictory to ignorance So they just can't tolerate this So initially they might oppose a little bit And they try to oppose The transcendent influences over there But eventually they can't win And many places they would just Draw away the ghosts How? By the power of the holy name So as devotees We don't have to be afraid of haunted houses Or of possessed people So possessed people means what? A ghost enters into A particular person Let us see how this happens So normally there is one soul In one body But what can happen is The person can become possessed That means another soul enters In the body, that soul is The soul with the subtle body It is a possessing ghost And because a possessing ghost May have more power This generally happens to people who live in Who are vulnerable to the mode of ignorance When they live in the mode of ignorance That is the area where ghosts also have power And they can enter When they enter Then the person's behavior itself alters Now one of our ISKCON scientists Dutta Karmaprabhu, Michael Cremo Has written a series of books One of them is Human Devolution And there he talks about ghosts Then he talks about how ghosts Can interact in three ways Communication, apparition And possession Communication means, you know You may have heard of planchettes Where certain messages come about That is one way.

Apparition means Somebody sees something Some white shadow or something like that But this is Possession is the third one So possession means This possessing person enters Into another person And there are many well documented Scientifically documented cases Of people, for example There is a person who is Born and brought up in France And that person has never gone out of France That person doesn't know Italian And suddenly one day the person Started talking Italian And not only is the person speaking Italian The whole speech Was quite different from the normal speech of a person Now each of us Based on our personality Based on our intelligence, based on our education Our speech is distinctive So what happens is If some other ghost possesses Then the speech becomes entirely different So there are many documented cases Of this and there are not many explanations Of why this happens from the scientific perspective But the explanation we understand is When the ghost possesses Then the person's personality gets changed But then if you practice bhakti seriously Then the danger of We being haunted by ghosts is not there Haunted or possessed by ghosts is not there And even if the danger comes We can counter it So this is with respect to ghosts There are many Other questions Let me quickly look at it Scientists have found fossils of dinosaurs Is there any explanation about them in the Vedas? Where do the animals and humans coexist according to Vedas? When Prabhupada was asked this question He said, now what is a dinosaur, There was a dinosaur, there was a dinosaur, There was a dinosaur, The giant reptile was there So he was described in the Vedic literature also So the point is That Science often operates On non-scientific Extrapolation of scientific data As I said So if there are fossils Which can be clearly proven To be of gigantic reptiles Then we can say that by inference, that those kind of creatures existed. In fact, there are some scientists who said, there are some researchers who have written books, how dinosaurs are existing even now. Now, I am not saying whether they are right or wrong, but the point is, there are some fossils which have been found which are of quite recent origin also.

The point is, most importantly, if there are fossils, then we can say that the dinosaurs have existed. That is not incompatible with the Vedic worldview. But what is incompatible and what is not scientifically sustainable is the science fiction that dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Or the dinosaurs were completely predominant in the planet and humans were not able to live or humans were covering in caves like that. No, the earth is large and there are different people, there are different kinds of living beings, different species who can live in different places. So, we do not dismiss the existence of dinosaurs.

They are very much compatible with the Vedic worldview. And the point is that they existed in their area, humans existed in another area. So, as I said in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, there is a description of a wide variety of life forms, even on the earth.

So, that is not necessarily incompatible. Now regarding, this often brings up the question about extinction. So, have they become extinct? And does extinction prove the theory of evolution? No.

First of all, when we talk about extinction, we are focusing primarily on a very small sample over a very small period of time. See the earth, the Bhagavad Gita tells us that the body is like a cloth. Isn't it? Now, for example, there is a global sweater manufacturing company.

Now, it is manufacturing sweaters, but if it is in the North Pole, in the northern hemisphere, it is extremely hot. Nobody is going to purchase sweaters over there. So, then in its warehouses and in its shops, in the shops that companies, sweaters may not come on.

Does that mean sweaters have become extinct? No, that season is unsuitable for sweaters. So, in some cases, if the atmospheric, ecological and other factors become unsuitable for certain kind of life forms to live, then those life forms may no longer be visible on the earth. During that particular time, those life forms have not become extinct in the sense that they are never existent or they will never be existent again.

It is just that according to season, certain things are manifest, certain things are not manifest. So, that is how it works. And that is the understanding for various species of life forms, which are talked about not only in the scripture, not only by science, but also in the scriptures.

Some people say Rakshasas are mythology. But no, Rakshasas are not mythology. They do not exist on earth right now.

Because as Kali Yuga spreads, because of the spread of Kali Yuga, the Devatas and the Asuras, they quarantine the earth. Devatas primarily quarantine. You know, if somebody is deceased, then that person is told to live in isolation so that the disease will not spread elsewhere.

So, similarly, the earth, because it is being infected by the influence of Kali, so it has been quarantined from the rest of the universe. And that is why the kind of intra planetary interactions that were described earlier, they are not manifest over here. So, what we understand is that we cannot make a universal statement based on finite observations, because of certain ecological or cosmic factors, certain species may not be visible now, but that does not mean they are extinct.

Now, this, the evolution does not perform, and evolution is not supported necessarily by extinction. See, extinction basically describes how by natural selection, certain species may have become extinct, they are no longer available. But natural selection only explains survival of the fittest.

It does not explain arrival of the fittest or it does not explain the arrival of anyone. So, natural selection does not explain it, it does not support evolution in any way. It is a technical subject.

But basically, the certain species may have become extinct, there is micro evolution, there is macro evolution. Micro evolution is a scientific fact. And that is not denied in the scriptures also.

It is described that one of the things that Krishna learned in the 64 skills is cross fertilization, cross pollination, cross breeding, that he learned at that time also, that is accepted as a form of knowledge over there. But micro evolution means that now we have apples of this size, now apples can be made of this size, apples can be made of this size. Or we may have dogs, we may have Alsatians or Dobermans, and we may have poodles.

Now, they are all dogs. And by certain playing around, we can change one dog from big or small. But we cannot change a dog into a monkey.

So, why? There is, scientists call it as a rubber band effect. What is it? Like a rubber band, if you pull too much, it flips back whenever you release it. And if you pull too much further, it breaks.

So, like that, species cannot be interacted too much and they cannot be changed too much. Because of the change of nature, some level of changes happen. So, extinction is one such change that happened.

That does not prove evolution, that simply proves micro evolution, which is an absurd fact of nature. Species change within themselves, but one species changing into another, and the original life coming from chemicals, unicellular organisms evolving into complex organisms. This is all entirely scientifically unsubstantiated right now.

Please explain the geocentric and heliocentric system, which is correct. Now, here, there was Tycho Brahe, who was a permanent cosmologist in the history of science. And he has given a very interesting perspective.

He says that, you know, the geocentric and heliocentric, they are basically scales of reference or not scales, frames of reference. Scale is what measures magnitude, frame is what is in the background itself. And he has shown that whatever scientific calculations that we do and whatever predictions that we make, whether we make it by heliocentric or by geocentric, we eventually get the same results.

And in fact, that is the point of Einstein's theory of relativity, is not it? That motion is relative. So, in that sense, it is not that these two are irreconcilably contradictory. Ultimately, we observe and we infer based on the observation and the predictions.

So, as I said earlier, even when in some parts of the world, there was the idea of the geocentric, still at that time also predictions could be made and the predictions would work, eclipses could be predicted and things like that. Now, do the Vedic scriptures talk about a geocentric or heliocentric universe? No, the point is the Vedic scriptures are talking from an entirely different reference point of view. So, the Vedic universe is neither geocentric nor heliocentric, it is Dhruva-centric.

You know, there is Dhruvaloka which is there and that is at the axis of the universe. And now there is some understanding of that as a correlation that we see the Dhruva, we call it even modern cosmology, nautical science, they consider the pole star as fixed. So, the Vedic understanding is, it is fixed because the planets are centered around it and that is the center.

So, now, I will not go into too much Vedic cosmology. Those of you who are interested, on my website, thespiritualscientist.com, I have put the PDF of a book by one ISKCON scientist, who is Dr. Richard L. Thomson, Sadaput Prabhu. He has written a book called Vedic Cosmography.

And in that book, you will get systematic explanations of Vedic cosmography and how it can be understood in the light of what modern cosmography has found. Suffice it to say that they are not contradictory entirely, they are reconcilable. Regarding is the universe expanding? I said yes.

The Vedas describe that when Mahavishnu exhaled, the universe has come out and as they come out, they expand. Lord Mahavishnu or any other demigod have a multi-dimensional form. So, we should be able to see their 3D projections in space and see their 3D projections in space similar to the moon.

True or false? No. It is a different thing because Mahavishnu does not just have a multi-dimensional form, he has a spiritual form and spiritual things do not create any material projections. That is why we cannot see them.

So, there is one question about God particle. So, I have given an elaborate talk on it and I have also written a couple of articles. I will go into that.

That is the last question, but till I open that, I will just take a couple of questions. Sometimes in split personality or multiple personality disorder, people act strangely or speak a language which was unknown to them or perform some acts like dance, sports or singing. What is the difference in possessed by a ghost and multiple personality disorder? Can you please explain this? There is one disciple of Sri Prabhupada, he wrote to him, Prabhupada, I am getting a lot of material desires.

I think a ghost with sinful desires has possessed me. So, Prabhupada said, no ghost has possessed, it is simply weakness of your mind. So, we do not have to imagine that ghost is possessed.

It is possible that ghost is possessed, but you know we are not, the Vedic scriptures also have a tradition of being self-critical. It is not that anything that we have some phenomena, we just say it is because of ghosts. It is not so simplistic.

So, there can be psychological problems and there can be neurological problems. Psychology is primarily in terms of the mind and in terms of behavior that is reflected because of the mind. So, psychological problems can be caused by ghosts, but there can be neurological problems.

There can be certain area of the brain which dysfunctions, certain chemicals are not secreted properly or whatever. I know one devotee, Sri Prabhupada's disciple, who just could not sleep. No matter how much he tried, he could not sleep.

He tried various things and there are always, even within spiritual community, there are people, you must be possessed by a ghost. He just did some research and eventually found that there is a particular chemical which induces sleep and that chemical, because of certain problem, was not being secreted in his body. He injected the chemical and he was able to sleep after that.

So, actually for almost seven months, he did not sleep only. Can you imagine that now that not able to sleep can change the behavior also completely. So, there is a lot of change that happened, but there is no need to possess a ghost or something like that.

So, in principle, we accept that ghosts exist and ghosts can possess, but it is not that in practice, every single thing that is peculiar, we assume that it is a ghost. So, if there is a neurological cause that has been discerned by neurological science, then we should take neurological treatment for it. As long as that neurological treatment does not directly contradict spiritual principles.

But if we find that certain things are indicative of the presence of a ghost, then we can take spiritual treatment. What is spiritual treatment? We chant Hare Krishna more. So, we chant Hare Krishna more and specifically if somebody is troubled, then they can chant the Narasimha prayers, read the 7th Canto Bhagavatam Narasimha's pastimes, sing Narasimha Aarti more, learn some Narasimha prayers, more for memorization, recitation, that way.

We focus on, if it is a biological problem, we take medicine, but along with that, we also practice bhakti and if it is a problem of ghost or something like that, we focus on the intensification of bhakti itself. So, we do not bother too much about these things. So, now we do not want this to become a ghostly class.

So, many of the questions are on ghosts. So, whatever questions you have asked me, I will answer later on my website using the, I will answer on my audio on my website. This is the spiralscientist.com. Click it, it will open, the PPT will open.

Open the PPT and show it to me. Or download the PPT also, whatever is required. Download the PPT or exhibit the PPT, whatever it takes.

So, now I will talk briefly about the God particle and does it prove or disprove the existence of God or whatever. So, firstly, the God particle has got nothing to do with God. It is just within, it is just nomenclature.

Now, when this particular scientist, he postulated the particle and he wrote a book about it. His sales, the book publisher said that, oh, this is such an abstract concept. You know, people will not, this book will not sell.

If you want to sell, better come up with a good name. And then the name came up, God particle. And that was just, you must have heard of spin doctors.

Spin doctors are people who market things, often in deceptive ways, just so that people will be attracted and people will purchase. So, basically, it was a spin doctrine strategy to increase the sales of the books. And even if you ask serious scientists, they say that the name God particle is not adequate.

Now, one reason they say that it is a fundamental particle, it gives mass to all, it gives mass to everything else. But then, you know, scientific theories are expanding. And in the future, some other particle may come up.

And if you are going to call this particle God particle, what will you call that particle? Godfather particle or Goddaughter particle or what? So, you know, misappropriating religious terminology just to increase sales or increase media attention, it is actually a disingenuous practice, it is a dishonest practice. And many scientists oppose it. And further, if you look at this God particle, you know, it has, it has an existence, which is infinitesimal.

It is so fractionally short, that it cannot even be detected unless we have very complicated sensors. And its mass is also negligible. So, its lifespan is negligible, its mass is negligible, its spin is negligible, its potency is negligible.

Does that sound like God to you? It has got nothing to do with God. So, within one particular theory, now there is, there is, this is going to become a little technical, and I can see that all of you are tired. So, within one particular, God is not a portion of knowledge.

God is the precondition of knowledge. God is not a portion of knowledge, He is a precondition of knowledge. Precondition means, because God exists, everything else exists.

And then, because everything else exists, because we exist, we can acquire knowledge. So, God is the precondition for all knowledge. Krishna says that, without my foundational existence, nothing would exist.

And there is nothing to be known. Sometimes people ask, if God caused everything, if God created everything, who created God? This condition, this question itself betrays a lack of understanding of the concept of God. God by definition is the cause of all causes.

So, if a child reads a book for the first time, and in that book the child finds that, oh, okay, these are the characters, and this hero is born from this person, and this heroine is born from this person. And then finally the author, the reader comes to know, small child, oh, this author also. He starts exploring, oh, where is the author in the book? Now, whose father, whose daughter or whose son? You may look, however long, in this novel, we are not going to find the author.

Isn't it? The author has created a timeline, author has created a storyline, author has created the cast of characters, author has created the plot, author exists outside it. So, similarly, Krishna does not exist in the fabric of space and time. He exists outside.

He is the cause because of which the whole cycle of cause and effects happens. He is at a different scale of existence. Even from the point of view of pure logic, the cause of all causes cannot have a cause.

If the cause of all causes had a cause, then that cause would be the cause of all causes. So, when we go back, trace the cause, cause, cause, wherever this trace stops, that is God. So, anyway, the point I am making is, God is not a portion of knowledge.

God is a precondition of all knowledge. Whereas the God particle is an extremely tiny portion of knowledge. Among all the forms of knowledge that we can have, science is one branch.

Among all the different sciences we can have, physics is one branch. Among all the many different mainstream branches of physics is there, the study of fundamental particles, particle physics is one branch. Within the particle physics, among all the many theories are there, there is one theory called the standard model.

Within the standard model, among the many different theoretical conceptions that are there, there is one particular particle and that particle has been called as a God particle. Just see, it is such a misnomer, it is an intentional misnomer. Something which is just one portion of one portion of one portion of one portion of one of one portion of one portion of one portion of one branch of knowledge.

To call that, to equate that with the precondition of all knowledge, that is just misleading entirely. So, the God particle does not in any way disprove the existence of God. It simply is just one theoretical conception which has been suggested, which has been postulated by some people and that is the branch of knowledge, it is advancing in that way.

It has got nothing to do with God. One last question, we will stop. What are hallucinations? How are they different from dreams? Do Vedic scriptures talk about hallucinations? Yes, Sapna itself is a very complex thing.

Hallucinations can be chemically induced. Hallucinations means, basically things are very disorderly. Dreams are not so much chemically inducible.

As I said, if you go back to the earlier diagram, what happens is that when the consciousness is withdrawn to the subtle level, then that we experience as dreams. But when because of neurological or chemical interference in the normal way of functioning, certain chemicals are given to people or because the brain functioning is disturbed, then the person's perceptions get disordered. And that is the time when hallucinations happen.

So, their origin and their nature is different. Both involve perceiving things which are different from the objective reality. But the origin and the nature, the origin in dreams is withdraw the consciousness to subtle level, whereas in hallucinations it is distortion of the consciousness when it is coming to the level of neurons and to the brain to the body.

That can be because of dysfunctioning of the brain or that because of structural dysfunction of the brain or that can be because of chemical disruption of the brain functioning because of insertion of certain chemicals. That's called hallucinogens, the chemicals which induce hallucinations. So, whatever other questions are there, I will answer them on my website and your voice coordinator will inform you whenever the questions are answered.

And we will, you can get the answers over there. I think we'll have to stop now because after this we'll have a break and then Pradishampu will take a different session. Thank you very much.

So, once Srila Prabhupada was asked that, isn't chanting Hare Krishna enough? He says, why do you need all this philosophy? Why do you need all this science? Why do you need all these books? So, chanting Hare Krishna is enough. If you are satisfied chanting Hare Krishna, that's wonderful. But often for our logical, skeptical minds, chanting Hare Krishna is not enough.

So, to persuade ourselves that the scriptures are also having sound, intelligible content, we study all this. Some of you may have found this discussion too scientific, too complicated. If that is the case, then don't worry about it.

This is not the heart of Krishna consciousness. This is simply some preconceptions, misconceptions that may have come up within us because of our scientific education. We are simply dealing with them.

So, you can take this discussion simply as an indication that whatever preconceptions, misconceptions, allegations about being unscientific that might come up, there are resources within the devotee community who can answer those questions. Now, I am not a scientist per se. I have a strong interest in science, more my interest in the philosophy of science.

But we have many devotees who are serious scientists. So, whatever questions I can't answer, they can answer. But often those answers, for us to understand, we will have to educate ourselves in science itself.

So, we don't have to do that. If any of you have specific scientific interest in scientific research, you can focus more on right now and understand the fundamentals of Krishna consciousness. Once you are fixed up with devotees, if you would like to do research in some scientific field, which also has some spiritual implications, then that sort of guidance can be provided also on an individual basis.

Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.