Gita 18.22 – A truncated representation of reality is not reality

Transcript

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in the mode of goodness.
Bhagavad Gita 18.22 तत्तु कृछ्णवदेकस्मिन् कार्ये सत्तमहैतु कम् अतत्वार्थवदल्पम्च तत्तामसमुदहर्थम् कृछ्णवदेकस्मिन् When one takes one thing and thinks that to be everything तत्तु कृछ्णवदेकस्मिन् कारे सत्तमहैतु कम् अतत्वार्थवदल्पम्च when one’s knowledge is devoid of knowledge of the truth अल्पम्च when it is meager knowledge तज्ञानमिद्धितामसम् that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance it’s interesting usually we’ll think of knowledge and ignorance as opposites so knowledge in ignorance what does that mean literally speaking it means that there is knowledge but that knowledge is of only a fragment of reality and if one gets so enamoured by the knowledge of the fragment of reality that one gets blinded to the totality of reality then that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance a classic example a classic contemporary example of knowledge in the mode of ignorance is Scientism science is a powerful tool for acquiring knowledge and this tool offers us material explanations for material phenomena Scientism on the other hand is an ideology that claims that science is the only way of acquiring knowledge about everything so the problem with Scientism is that it reduces reality so that it almost becomes a representation of reality it becomes almost like a distortion of reality thus for example if there is a living person there is a living person and that person is reduced if we do some tests of that person and by those tests say we come to know about their blood composition we come to know about their various things physical features and all those physical features alone comprise that person suppose say that person was trying to get married and the only thing that they put was their biological parameters what is their blood composition what is their RBC count, what is their WBC count what are their platelets count now how could that and that alone be the basis for forming a marital bond now the medical data of a person is useful for a particular purpose it is useful, very useful, indispensable in fact when some treatment is to be given when some disease is to be diagnosed but for the purpose of developing relationships for the purpose of choosing whether a person is a prospective match the medical data alone is far from enough it is a the medical data is a representation of the person but it is a truncated and impoverished representation of the person every person has their personality and none of that personality ever comes out in their in their biological data in their medical data so just as a person is very inadequately represented by their medical data similarly reality is represented very inadequately by its scientific representation science starts with a methodology wherein it focuses primarily on empirical measurable parameters so for example while looking at an object the scientific method divides the qualities of the object into primary and secondary and those which are measurable they are deemed as primary and they are the focus of scientific study and secondary characteristics secondary qualities they are considered unimportant because they are not necessarily quantifiable so for example if there is a food item say if you come home one day and suddenly you find that your mother has made a cake for you a soft, sweet, succulent sumptuous cake now you could employ a team of scientists to find out what all is the composition of the cake what are the ingredients in that cake but even the world’s best scientists would not be able to tell why your mother made that cake no matter how much they studied the cake or no matter how much they studied even the brain of your mother but you ask the mother and the mother tells that today was the day when your first tooth broke out 18 years ago so on the occasion of the birthday of your first tooth I have made this cake for you so intention, emotion none of these are scientifically measurable not only scientifically quantifiable in the direct sense so when we reduce reality to its scientific representation then we impoverish ourselves because we can’t find anything enriching in the reduced version of reality that science has presented before us what the scientific method considers as primary our normal mind considers as secondary and what we consider as primary some scientific method considers as secondary so for example when we eat a delicacy we would be interested in how does it taste now taste is not something that can be measured by any scientific instrument a scientific instrument can tell us that this much sugar is present in this item this much oil is present by comparing the ingredients present in a particular item with the ideal composition of ingredients as might be stored in its data records an artificial intelligent cooking system might be able to guide us decrease the sugar or increase the spice but it is not experiencing taste at all the experience of taste is something which requires consciousness to be present and that consciousness is itself not measurable by science so that is whether it is taste or it is beauty or whatever it is these are the features the five sense objects as we say defining characteristics Roop, Rasa, Sparsh, Gandha so form, taste, smell, touch dhwani, voice, sound these are when we observe the world around us now we don’t go around with a measuring stick literally what is the statistical dimension of particular things what we look at is how they look their measurable parameters just say height breadth, depth these are features and for particular purposes we might be interested in them but especially when it comes to approaching for the purpose of developing a relationship we focus primarily on what science deals with secondary characteristics not so much on the primary characteristics and to the extent we leave our understanding or rather misunderstanding behind to open our mind to Krishna and Krishna consciousness understand the importance of Krishna and Krishna consciousness then we can march ahead steadily and we can eventually attain Krishna such Krishna attainment fulfills our heart completely as Shaktinath Thakur says O Lord, I have no shelter apart from the body that’s why taking shelter of the Lord who is beyond the body who can we take shelter of even in the body by taking shelter of that Lord we all can move towards higher consciousness towards lasting satisfaction and science can help us to function in this world to answer the how questions about how things function and thus we can use science without succumbing to the narrowness of scientism rather than settling for a truncated and impoverished version of reality that emerges from a reductionistic vision of the world around us instead of that, going on that cul-de-sac going on that dead end we turn towards Krishna and by hearing the Bhagavad Gita and its empowering wisdom we understand how its wisdom is actually so empowering in enabling us to get a more realer and richer picture of reality richer because we understand that all of existence is not just a random interaction of particles acting according to impersonal laws governed by inexorable unfeeling chance that is what the atheistic worldview would have us believe that is not true and there are a number of books which talk about our goal is to help people to come close to Krishna and whatever helps in that we are happy to do that