Gita 09.10 – Nature is not causally complete without an ultimate cause
Thank you. Bhagavad Gita 9.10 Krishna is speaking here, oft-quoted verse from Bhagavad Gita.
This is the last verse in the section from 9.4 to 10, where Krishna talks about his relationship with the material world. And here he speaks, maya adhyakshena prakriti, under my supervision, prakriti, material nature works, suyate saccharacharam, suyate, suyate is to create, to manifest, saccharachara, the moving and non-moving things, all of existence essentially, hetu ananena kaunteya, hetu, with that cause, with that instrument, anena, anena means this, kaunteya, avasana, avasana of kunti, jagad viparivartate, the world gets transformed, viparivartate. So what is Krishna saying in this verse that has not been spoken earlier? In one sense, Krishna is giving us concise summary of his relationship with the world.
Is Krishna directly involved in the world? No, his involvement is in the form of supervision. maya adhyakshena, aksha is eyes, maya, maya, adhi, adhi means from above, adhyaksha means one who sees from above, oversees or supervises. Later in 13.23, Krishna will use a similar word, upadrashta, drashta is seer, upadrashta is one who sees from above, overseer as we see.
Material nature works under his supervision. maya adhyakshena prakriti, suyate saccharacharam, suyate, it manifests, chara and achara, all the moving and non-moving existence, chara and achara. Now, the difference between the living entities and Krishna is that although the living entities and Krishna are both transcendental, the living entities are currently under material nature and Krishna is above material nature.
So, avashyam prakriti, Roshad Krishna said in 9.8, which means that the living beings are under the control of material nature, whereas for himself, he is maya adhyakshena prakriti. So, he is above material nature. Jagad viparivartate, parivartan, the change that keeps happening in the world, by its rule, the changes take place in this world.
One of the common argument that scientists have, or not scientists necessarily, atheists have against the existence of God is what they call as the causal completeness of nature. The causal completeness means that they argue that all natural phenomena can be explained in natural terms. All natural phenomena can be explained in terms of the events happening in material nature.
So, for example, if there is a flood, then the cause of the flood, we can say that there were rains and because of the rains, the water in the river overflew and because of that overflowing, rains occurred. They say that there is no reason to bring in any supernatural being, any higher beings who have caused this. The causal completeness, that means nature itself can explain completely the phenomena that happen in nature.
Now, as far as the causal completeness of nature is concerned, Krishna also says over here, yes, hetu anena kaunteya, jagad viparivartate, that changes in material nature happen by its root, hetu anena. So, the Bhagavad Gita does not deny the orderliness of material nature. So, for example, if somebody says that a car runs because of the fuel and because of the mechanism by which fuel is converted in the engine into kinetic energy, which causes the wheels to move, then this explanation is really not against the explanation that there is a driver who wanted to go somewhere and because of that the car moved.
The two explanations are of different categories and they are not contradictory, they are complementary explanations. So, the order of material nature is not denied by Bhagavad Gita, by spiritual knowledge. Hetu anena kaunteya.
So, material nature has its order and science tries to uncover that order and as much as possible science will succeed in uncovering that order and that actually speaking, the more science uncovers order in nature, the more the question comes up, why does the order exist? So, the orderliness of material nature rather than making God redundant, makes God foundational to that order. So, we may say nature is causally complete and even if we for argument agree with that, still the point remains the causal completeness of nature requires a cause. The causal completeness of nature, if nature were a result of unguided chance, then if there was just something that exploded and by that the, by the explosion of that primeval something, that's from that singularity emerge everything, then why should that everything be so orderly? So orderly as to have an orderliness that is precisely depictable by mathematical equations.
The causal completeness of nature requires a cause to be complete. That means, we may say, okay, a natural phenomena can be explained by natural causes, which is fine. But why is it that there is this precise correlation of a mathematical precision in the behaviour of things if they were just products of random chance, of unguided chance? So, the very causal connections and the very causal completeness of material nature points to the existence of a God by whose arrangement and under whose supervision nature functions in a causally complete way.
So, those who see science and religion as contradictory, they say that, they say that, okay, because science can explain things, so we no longer need God. So, earlier people thought that rains were caused by some, some gods and now we know rains are caused by condensation of clouds and things like that. But we see that the Bhagavatam when it says rains are caused by Indra, it does not deny that rains are caused by clouds also.
It is that Indra sends clouds and the example is given often that just as a cloud takes water from the ocean and gives back to the land, similarly a wealthy person, a king takes taxes and gives back, gives back resources to the needy people. The point is that rains coming from clouds is not denied even in scripture and therefore the causal completeness of, of material nature is, it is acknowledged herein that material nature, the changes in material nature happen by its order and Krishna is the overseer. So, Krishna, and now it's a different question that Krishna can interfere within material nature if he desires through miraculous or supernatural means, but Krishna doesn't do that on a regular basis.
Krishna actually stays, as I said in previous verse, he stays detached as if detached and as indifferent and as if indifferent and detached, he says. So, he allows material nature to work according to its own order and that orderliness is what science tries to discover and the more science discovers the order of nature, the more that orderliness requires the explanation and that order, the explanation of that orderliness is God. This maya-adhyakshena prakriti, under my, my order, material nature works, Krishna says.
Thank you.