Can neuroscience make people happy, thereby making spirituality unnecessary?
Thank you Question by Purushottam Kumar Prabhu Can one go back home, back to Godhead by practicing Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Judaism? Are these religions being authorized religious practices? Can one develop genuine love for God by practicing these religions? If yes, then what is the destination of those who are sincerely practicing these religions? Do they go back home, back to Godhead? Answer, going back to Godhead is not a matter of religious denomination, it is a matter of spiritual devotion so if one has developed love for God, then whatever be the tradition one is practicing, one can go back to Godhead Shri Prabhupada was asked this question in a public radio program called a last screen show this incident is described in Mukunda Maharaj's book Miracle on the Second Avenue so he was asked Swami, do you believe that people who follow Christians, they can go back to Christianity they can go back to God? Prabhupada said yes, any bona fide religion if they develop love for God, they can go back to Godhead on the other hand, when the Christians so this was a talk show between it was like a discussion with a Christian and Prabhupada over there so the Christian teacher was asked he said no, the path back to God is very narrow and that is the idea of many exclusivist religions that only our religion takes people back to God and this is certainly not the Vedic perspective the criteria is not love of God is not belonging to some religious denomination it is developing love of God now the question may come can people develop love of God by practicing these religions definitely, there are many exalted saints, there is St. Francis there is Teresa of Avila she was a nun and there are many like this who have developed extraordinary levels of love of God and if we read their biographies we will see that the saintly qualities that are exalted in the Srimad Bhagavatam are seen in their lives also tolerance compassion non-enviousness, all these qualities they are there in these people in various religious traditions so even among Muslims there are Sufis who are very exalted saintly devotees so anyone who develops love for God can go back to God so now Christianity Islam and Judaism all three accept that God is the ultimate goal of life and the way to attain that goal is by developing love for Him so these are theistic religions and where will one go it depends on one's levels of practice generally if we follow a bona fide representative of God, then by that following that representative it is God and that representative who take care of us for moving forward how exactly one will go, where one will go that will depend on one's consciousness and one's individual circumstances the person is faithfully following Christianity Jesus may guide the person onwards and may take him to some other place where that person gets further knowledge, refines the devotion and then the person goes back to Krishna or there can be purification that can happen there can be revelation that can happen from within and by which one can also go back to the spiritual world where in the spiritual world one will go, that will depend on one's original Swaroopa so the broad principle is that one has to develop love for God and how one will develop that love for God, whether it will be at the end of this life itself or after some lives we can't say, that will depend on every soul's individual level of devotion as well as level of past karmic entanglement and conditionings the sure thing that we know is that if we surrender to God and try to develop love for him by following a bona fide representative then surely we are in safe hands and we will be cured of immortal conditions and restored back to the spiritual world, the specifics will vary we can't know the specifics directly entirely, even for those who are following the Gaudiya Vaishnava path that's why we can't demand to know exact specifics about others now, apart from the theistic religions, if we look at Buddhism and Jainism, these are non-theistic religions, they don't accept the existence of God, so if those who follow these religions purely they will become elevated from the lower modes to the mode of goodness, and historically speaking, that was the primary purpose of these religions, these are pre-theistic religions philosophically speaking, some of them may seem to be atheistic in the sense that they do not accept the existence of God but essentially speaking, their focus is not so much on the rejection of God but as on proper living so Buddha himself did not speak much philosophy because he rejected the scriptures and you cannot really speak philosophy elaborately without having a scriptural basis to it so he said that don't bother about all this metaphysical philosophy, just learn to live properly, what is the use of talking about big big philosophy if you're just still killing animals and eating their flesh, can't we see that they are also living beings like us and they suffer, so his religion was eminently practical and it talked about practical changes of behavior by which higher learning will come so basically if those who are Buddhists, Jainism is more or less similar it also emphasizes living which is largely in the mode of goodness so naturally if people come from the lower modes of goodness, that is definitely a level of advancement on the path back to God, so depending on how much goodness they have assimilated then they will get a destination accordingly as per their level of goodness, now if they are devoted to Buddha, within Buddhism there is a tradition of there is almost like a personalist tradition where Buddha is considered to be God and people worship him and people some Buddhists desire to attain his abode, so then if they develop a love for God in terms of developing devotion for Buddha then that is that is a further factor in their favor because now they are not just elevated in terms of developing a higher mode but they also developed a devotional aptitude and inclination so depending on the level of goodness developed and the level of devotion developed, accordingly their advancement will be determined so if anybody follows a path that is given by God or by the arrangement of God and if one is elevated by that path then one will be elevated by that, so basically rather than talking about religious dominations we need to look at the conceptual understanding and the behavior, so there is doxi and praxi, doxi means beliefs and praxi means practices so by understanding people's beliefs and looking at their practices then we can understand what will be their destination, so in the 8th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita essentially it talks about three kinds of faith, so those that chapter can be used as a reference to understand these religions and their destinations, I have also given a series of lectures on Krishna conscious world religions and those interested in this can hear these lectures more to understand these religions in greater depth but the broad principle is if we develop love of God we go back to God, if we develop the mode of goodness we become elevated, thank you.