Gita key verse course 23 Can we be spiritual and rational – How can science and spirituality go together – Gita 07.07

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Hare Krishna. So these are two questions we’ll be discussing today. Can a rational person be spiritual and how can science and spirituality go together? At one level, today’s topic might seem very preliminary.
Many times we talk about, say, the existence of the soul and the existence of God as introductory topics in maybe our classes whenever they are held, if we join some course, the journey of self-discovery or whatever course we might be joining initially. In the flow of the Gita, the Gita was spoken in a culture where the existence of God was never a debated question, at least for the audience that the Gita was spoken to. Krishna was speaking to Arjuna.
There, there was no question about that. That’s why in the Gita’s flow itself, there are no direct references to establish the existence of God. There is some reasoning given to establish the existence of the soul because that question was pertinent to Arjuna’s, that subject was pertinent to Arjuna’s immediate concern.
That was, how can I kill my loved ones? So one part of the answer was that actually the souls are eternal, so you’re not actually killing them. However, the existence of God itself is not an issue relevant to the immediate subject of the Gita or the immediate, the original audience of the Gita. So we will, today what we’ll be discussing is not so much an existence of God, it is more an idea of how rational, how rationality and spirituality can go together.
And since a major output of rationality is science, so we’ll talk in extension about how, when we are studying the Bhagavad Gita, how can we be both scientific and spiritual. So the verse we’ll be discussing is 7-7. So there is no truth other than me.
Kinchit asti dhananjaya. Mai sarva-midam protham sutre mani-ganaiva. That just as thread underlies and unifies all the pearls that comprise a necklace.
So similarly, there is the divine, the ultimate reality, Krishna, who underlies and permeates everything. Now mattah parataram na anyat. Now this is a very, parataram can mean higher or other, both, para.
So there is no truth higher than me, there is no truth other than me. Of course, no truth, higher than me. So this actually gives a very fundamental understanding of God itself, which will be important for us to explore, to discuss this topic further.
But this is, so the idea is that the pearls are visible, the thread is not so easily visible. Like that in nature, we see many extraordinary manifestations that are visible, but what is underlying is not so easily visible. So let’s look at what we’ll be discussing, three parts today.
How rationality points to something more. And then we’ll talk about three levels, rational, irrational and trans-rational. And then how science and spirituality can work together.
So now rationality points to reality beyond rationality. How does that work out? So firstly, let’s look at what we mean by the word rationality. So rationality is something which is reasonable, something which is logical.
So where, when we human beings function in the world, we have broadly two aspects to our functioning. There is, there is our beliefs, our conceptions, and then there is behaviour, our actions. So our conception and actions of belief or behaviours.
So how we take in the world and how we act in the world. These two are our primary parameters, which, which shape our interaction with the world. Now, if both of these are guided by reason, by logic, then that is said to be that, that body of looking at the world, of interacting with the world is called the rationality.
And the opposite of rationality is irrationality. But now when we talk about rationality sciences, when say, for example, now we have a pandemic going on. So when the black plague was going on in Europe several hundred years ago, at that time, there was an explanation that maybe it’s caused by some evil spirits.
And some people thought the spirits were possessing cats and from cats, they were coming to humans or some people thought later it’s with rats or whatever, but there are evil spirits. Now that kind of explanation is when science uses the word rational, it uses, it really equates the word natural. Natural means, it refers to material nature.
So if there are some beings like that, science can’t study them. So science rejects that kind of explanation and says, so let’s find out what actually causes this. And that’s how we come up with the, the study of germs.
And then there’s a discovery. So rational explanations focus on the, they work on the idea that this world, when we want to look for explanations in this world, we look for physical or either empirical observations or something that can be reasonably inferred from empirical observations. So that is the idea of rationality.
Now, while that is good and science has made tremendous advancement using rational understanding, but let’s, there are some, there are some questions which rationality can’t answer. And the first question that rationality can’t answer is why does rationality work at all? Why should the universe be rational? Why should it be orderly? Why should it work in a way that is logical and reasonable? So if we accept a atheistic way of looking at the world, if the world is the result of unguided subatomic particles, then why should such particles have organised themselves in ways that are rationally intelligible? And not only that, let’s try to understand this. Why should our mind, which too is supposed to be a product of unguided natural forces, be structured to work according to reason? So the idea over here is that in the world outside, say for example, Newton saw apple falling and he came up with the equation F is equal to gm1 m2 upon r2.
Now why would, why should the falling of objects follow certain rules? And now we consider there are mathematical constructs. So math is basically, does math actually exist in nature? We could say mathematical operations like addition, subtraction exist in nature, but the mathematical conceptions like say imaginary numbers or integral calculus, do they exist actually in nature? Well, they don’t. Then why does the working of nature correlate with them? So if math is something which we have thought up with our minds and nature is out there and both of them are unguided, both of them have resulted from unguided forces, then why should, why should there be any correlation between what we think up with our mind and how the world actually works? So this is a mystery that many mainstream scientists have pondered.
So we have Gene Wigner, a Nobel laureate. He says that the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift, which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend for the better or for worse to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement.
So this might seem a little mouthful of a quote, but it’s simple enough. Why does math work? This is a question for which reason itself has no answer. If we consider the evolutionary world view, then all living beings are geared for survival.
Nature is an arena where everybody struggles for survival. So we are simply biological robots that are, that are geared for survival and reproduction primarily. Then why should we even have the ability to think rationally in terms of mathematics, to think abstractly in terms of life’s ultimate questions? Why if Newton was also simply a product of unguided evolution, why when the apple fell, he didn’t pick it up and just eat it and go away.
If he were simply a biological robot geared for survival and reproduction, he could just have eaten the apple. That’s, that’s all. Why think of anything more? And so why should our minds be capable of math at all? And more importantly, why should nature work according to math? So now math is considered to be foundational to rationality as it is conceived by science, and especially as it is expressed through mathematical equations.
So here, the point is that rationality works, but rationality has no explanation why it works. If we just stick only to rationality in terms of logic and logic as is defined or utilised in modern science, that for everything natural, we want to find a natural explanation. Then within nature, within material nature, there is no explanation why material nature should organise itself according to rational principles that work according to mathematical laws, or why our minds should be capable of rational thinking expressible in mathematical terms.
So that the point here is not that we reject rationality or we limit rationality, but we recognise that rationality itself requires an explanation. So now God and rationality or God or reason, how do they relate with each other? So God is not an explanation for the unexplainable. He is the explanation for explainability.
Now one of the famous, one of the common atheistic tropes against God is that in the past, people thought that, oh, they didn’t know how rains fall. So they attributed that rains fell because of some gods and they tried to worship those gods. Or in the past, people didn’t know how diseases occurred.
So they imagined that there are some spirits over there and they tried to appease those spirits. So basically the idea is that in the universe, there are many things that are unexplainable and primitive people or pre-scientific people came up with the idea of God as an explanation for the unexplainable. And even now some religious people might use that kind of strategy for proving, you know, oh, science doesn’t know this, science doesn’t know that, and therefore we need God.
But that is not the mood of the Bhagavad Gita. See, the Bhagavad Gita talks about how the universe works under the supervision of the divine. What that means is God is not the explanation for the unexplainable.
It is the explanation for explainability. Explainability means, why are things explainable at all? Why should falling objects follow a particular mathematical formula that we have codified as Newton’s equation, Newton’s gravitational equation? Why should matter and energy be interchangeable in a particular way as is codified by Einstein’s E is equal to mc2? So now, why do these equations actually work? So it’s very important that if we start presenting God as, because science can’t explain this, therefore we need God. No, science can explain this because there is God.
This is God of the gaps is often a common atheistic argument that God of the gaps means that there are some gaps in scientific understanding and God fills up those gaps. And their idea is that as those gaps can get filled up with scientific understanding, then God will have no space to live. So God, what the Bhagavad Gita gives us a vision is not God of the gaps, but God who underlies everything, including the gaps.
So what we can understand, we understand by the grace of God and what we don’t understand, or no, sorry, what we can understand that is understandable. Why is it understandable at all? That understandability itself manifests some higher intelligence. So who underlies everything, including the gaps.
Now, moving forward. So this is the idea of God as thread in the necklace, which you started the discussion over here. God is a thread in the necklace of the world.
Now what this means is, this is a very foundational understanding. So you may sometimes think of, say, I exist here and another person exists there, another person exists there. Sometimes God may be conceived of in this way.
And there’s a hierarchy and God exists at the top of the hierarchy. So now in common parlance, we might use it like that. Okay.
So, you know, you have, you have your head of your district, and then, then we have a head of the state, then we have the head of the country. Maybe there’s an empire spanning the world. You’d have the emperor of the world, but then beyond all such people, the topmost is God.
Yes, that is one way of looking at God, but that is only a partial understanding of God. God does not exist merely at the top of a hierarchy. God is not the best, just the best of all beings.
God is the basis of all being. God is the basis of all being means nothing would exist without God. God is the existence who makes all existence possible.
So now, if I just look at the necklace and keep examining the pearls, I may not find the thread at all. Now, now we can have super fine with advanced technology. We can have pearls, necklaces made in such a way, super fine, and all the pearls are so close together that we might not even notice that there is a thread over there.
But a thread is essential for the existence of the necklace. Without the thread, the necklace wouldn’t exist. So if we look at it in this way, then some people ask, if God created everything, who created God? Many atheists claim that this is a question which is a knockout.
But actually, it’s not a knockout question. It’s a question that expresses one’s ignorance. Why is that? Asking who created God is like asking who made a circle circular? Well, nobody made a circle circular.
Circle by definition is circular. So similarly, the very definition of God is, 1039 Krishna says that God is the existence without whom no existence would be possible. He is the existence that underlies all existence.
He is the cause of all causes. Now, you may say, but what does that mean? Every school of knowledge or every field of knowledge begins with some definitions. So let’s take another example to simplify this point of definition.
Suppose somebody reads, say, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. And then say a child reads that book as intrigued by it and reads about all the characters over there. And then at the end, maybe a friend tells, JK Rowling is a very good writer.
Oh, who is JK Rowling? JK Rowling is the writer of the book. Oh, really? And the child starts reading the book. I don’t find JK Rowling in the book.
Well, JK Rowling is not in the book. She made the timeline. She made the storyline.
She created, she made the character. She made the, she made a lot about the interaction, the dialogue, the setting, everything. But she exists outside.
So no matter how exhaustively somebody may study, study the Harry Potter novels, they’re not going to find JK Rowling as a character over there. So similarly, God does not exist in nature. Now, God is not like an undiscovered satellite around Jupiter.
We just need to find the right instruments and we’ll find God. No, God exists outside the domain of time and space. When we ask who created God, that question itself indicates that or that question presumes that God exists within time.
So God is not created by time. Rather, God creates time and God creates through time. So God exists outside the domain of time.
But so here is, why is this important to understand? Because we especially, we will be later talking about the personal and impersonal conceptions of the divine also later. But the point is, especially when we worship a personal conception, say we have of God, when we see to a temple and we look at a image, a deity of God, then by looking at the deities, we might get a conception that God is just one person like all of us. Yeah.
Okay. He’s different. He’s powerful.
But he’s just a person like us. No. God exists in a different category of being.
So God is the existence who makes all existence possible. God, we all exist in the time domain, but God exists outside the time domain. That’s why the question who created God is itself irrational, is a irrational question because it presumes certain things which are not true.
What does it presume? That God exists within time, that God is a creator within time. God is neither a creator within time nor a creator within time. God exists outside the time.
It’s like J. K. Rowling exists outside the Harry Potter novels. So, let’s move on now. So again to reinforce the same point that God, and how do we look at God in science? God is not an explanatory alternative to science.
He’s the explanatory foundation, the raison d’etre for all explanations. That means, the more science advances and the more science comes up with astonishing findings about the nature of reality, the more our conviction, our God’s existence and brilliance can increase. Nowadays, you may get impressed by seeing how fast not just computers work, even our phones work.
Now today, in an ordinary phone that we have in our hands, we have more processing power in a phone today than maybe all the computers in the world had in the 1960s. So, you may say, oh, science is so brilliant. Technology is so brilliant.
Yes, it is. However, technology functions based on certain principles, with the semiconductor effect. The semiconductor effect was not created by science.
It was tapped by science. So, we appreciate that tapping of it through technology, and we appreciate the brilliance of the scientists and researchers who are doing that. But at the same time, recognise that the foundational realities, if there were no semiconductor effect, there would be no telecommunications at all.
There would be no microchips possible. Nothing, all the genre of electronics and telecommunications would not be possible. And we did not create that.
Now, why should, now some elements of conductors, they say, for example, electric current to pass through them easily. So, if somebody is getting electric shock, now we are told, don’t touch them. They should find something, say, insulator, like wood or something to touch, not touch something like a metal.
So, the idea is that, why? Because certain elements are conductors, certain are insulators. Now, why should something be in between semiconductors? Well, we may say, oh, because the bonding of the, within the atoms is not that strong, or whatever. That is not an explanation.
See, that is a, that is a, okay, there is a difference between how something works and why something exists. So, why should the semiconductor exist, effect exist at all? Why should all elements not be conductors and insulators? So, technology doesn’t, technological advancement doesn’t in any way challenge God’s existence. Because God is not an explanatory alternative to science or technology.
He is a explanatory foundation. Now, this takes us to next part. This is a huge subject, actually, science and spirituality.
Come on. So, now we move to the next part is rational, irrational and trans-rational. So, we could have these three levels.
Rational is where we normally operate. Now, irrational is where somebody acts in, somebody makes some, say, while we are discussing something with someone, we just make some illogical arguments. And that means it’s not based on reasoning, it’s based on half-coke logic or whatever.
So, the irrational is that which can’t stand rational scrutiny. Whereas the trans-rational is that before which rationality finds itself inadequate. What do we mean by that? Why would rationality find itself inadequate? Because we humans, there are realities beyond the rational.
So, what is a trans-national reality? So, for example, why does rationality work? Within an atheistic worldview, there is no rationale for why rationality should work. There is no reason why reason should work. Why should things be logical? Some say, let’s take this from another perspective, that atheists sometimes make fun of some religious people saying that, oh, you follow so many rituals and superstitions that these don’t make any sense.
These don’t make any sense. Now, of course, there are many superstitions which don’t make sense. Not everything that is followed in traditions is valid.
But, okay, you’re so concerned about whether things make sense or not. But then what is the end result of the rational worldview? Rationality, if a rationalistic worldview is necessarily said to be non-atheistic. Now, it is not, but that’s the presumption.
If you’re rational, how can you believe in stuff like God and soul and all this stuff? Okay, let’s assume that it’s not a proven conclusion that rationality has to lead to atheism. But let’s presume it does so. But then what happens is rationality tries to figure out, okay, now why does this apple fall down this way? Or why do, how does electricity flow through certain elements? Or why does this cosmic phenomena happen in this particular way? So through rationality, we try to find out how various aspects of the universe make sense.
But then within the rational worldview, what happens is, okay, why does the universe exist itself? That makes no sense at all. You know, oh, it’s just a cosmic accident. And we are existing and we live for some time and we die.
In fact, a prominent atheist physicist said that, Steven Weinberg said that the more the universe becomes comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. The more the universe becomes comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. Now, what does that mean? That means what he’s saying is that the more we start making sense, okay, this is how this works, this is how that works, that is how that works.
But you know, what’s the meaning of the whole universe? Oh, it has no meaning. So that just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like, suppose we discover some ancient script, maybe some, they dig under, dig some part of India or Egypt or China, they find some wall underground, and there’s an ancient script.
And then we start saying, okay, you know, this, this shape means this letter, that shape means that letter, this combination means this word, and this word means this. So now, we decipher the whole script. And individual words make sense.
But the whole message doesn’t make sense. Like every, every mark is meaningful. And the words are meaningful, the letters are meaningful, the words are meaningful, but the message is not meaningful.
So what, what’s going on here? So that is the result of the atheistic worldview of the, when we take rationality as the sole basis of knowledge and equate it with atheism. And why does the universe, this makes sense, that makes sense, that makes sense. And by scientific research, we’ll discover more of what makes sense and why things work the way they do.
But the universe, it doesn’t make sense. We just exist and we die and the life has no meaning. Really.
So it’s like we are struggling to find small islands of meaning, while drowning in an ocean of meaninglessness. We are struggling to find islands of meaning while drowning in an ocean of meaninglessness. So trans-rational means that, that which, before which rationality itself finds itself inadequate.
That means the trans-rational is where each one of us actually finds that what we can see of rationality, okay, why does rationality work? And what is the meaning of all this existence? So is there something called trans-rational? That is where the idea of miracles comes into the picture. So miracles are not against science, they are above science. What do you mean by above science? Let’s consider the example now.
We have a one famous miracle in the Bhakti tradition, that is of Krishna lifting over Govardhan. Now somebody might say, a purely rationalist person might say that, or a devotee of rationality might say that, how could somebody be able to do something like this? How can somebody lift it? Yes, normally it’s not possible for anyone to lift it. But there is something else going on over here.
So how does Krishna find the centre of gravity of Govardhan to lift it? Say for example, if you have to lift something, say even if I have to lift a phone, just lifting it with one finger, I need to find the exact centre. If my finger is anywhere else, it will just fall off. So how did Krishna find the centre of gravity of Govardhan? Krishna didn’t have to find the centre of gravity because he is the source of gravity.
The source of gravity, that means what science calls as the laws of nature, when we talk about miracles, what do we mean by miracles? Different people may have different understanding of what miracles are and not all miracles are true. Here we are not talking about the whether specific miracles are true or not, but we are talking about the principle of whether miracles are possible or not. Miracles means that where the normal laws of nature are temporarily suspended.
How might they be suspended? Say for example, Krishna has got nature to work according to the law of gravity. But when Krishna wants, he suspends that law. Why would he suspend that law? For the reciprocation of love with his devotees.
So that’s what is going on over here, that actually miracles, we do not reject science, we do not reject that, that means we don’t, we acknowledge fully that the world works rationally, but we understand that rationality is not the ultimate reality. We understand that there is a divinity beyond rationality and on special occasions within the history of the universe, that divinity might intervene. And then the rationally deciphered or rationally comprehended laws of the universe might be suspended on a few occasions.
So spirituality does not reject rationality, but spiritually does not restrict humanity to rationality. Humanity means, here we are talking about, we understand that there is more than rationality also within the existence. Now, this is not just within existence, it is in human nature also.
Now, sometimes say, we all may have heard of stories of say times when say, a family is caught in an accident, and maybe a big car has crushed a smaller vehicle. And then there is a child inside that car. And then the mother or the father, they just rush over there, they somehow get some superhuman surge of strength, and they push aside the car.
Now, how does this happen? Now, normally, they might not be able to do anything like that. And now, if it were pure rationality, they wouldn’t even try it. They say, I can’t do it.
But what happens is that when say, for example, the twin towers were falling, and some of the firefighters went inside. Now, they knew that the twin towers were burning. They knew that towers might collapse, and if they collapse, they would die.
But they went in. Why did they go in? Because, you know, if they were simply biological machines, driven by the urge for survival, from a rational perspective, hey, why should I risk my life for someone else? But such an act, we don’t consider it as stupid. We consider it as heroic.
Of course, one shouldn’t be foolhardy. And where death is certain, we don’t go in over there. But the point is, when somebody risks one’s own life to save somebody else’s life, we consider that noble.
So, human actions need to be rational, but we can’t restrict humanity to rationality alone. Now, we need, some of the most noble actions that humans do, some of the most inspiring things that people do, are not because of, not when they’re simply governed by rational thinking. It is inspirational.
It is based on some higher values. So, there’s trans-rational aspect to reality. And then, now the last part, how science and spirituality can work together.
So, broadly speaking, science is the study of matter. Spirituality is the study of what matters. So, what do we mean by study of matter? Science studies, let’s look at this.
Yeah. So, study of matter improves our capacity to control the outer world. So, as I said earlier that what does science do? Science looks at material objects and tries to understand how they interact with each other.
And by that analysis and understanding, we improve our capacity to control the world outside. So, by understanding how, say, the laws of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics or other such laws, we can better develop technology and so that we control the world. And this has led to some phenomenal successes.
However, science itself can’t provide us answers about study of what matters. What matters means what is more important, what is less important. How do we decide this? That science can’t tell us by itself.
It is study of what matters, helps us make better choices. It brings value to our life. It makes us better human beings.
Now, what do I mean by study of what matters over here? In the mainstream media, we often hear about how there is so much violence that is triggered because of religious extremism. And yes, it is true, unfortunately. But extremism is just a human mentality.
And that extremism as a mentality can use or abuse religion. And extremism as a mentality can use and abuse science also. Now, most of us probably have not heard that at his times, Hitler’s Germany was among the most scientifically advanced.
And Hitler tried to create his vision of reality. He tried to justify his Nazism by science. In fact, now this is not again to blame science at all.
It is to illustrate this point that the study of matter and the study of what matters are two separate things. And science doesn’t tell us what matters. Now, what do I mean by this? Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, it is my struggle.
Now, it was a direct derivation from Darwin’s idea of the struggle for existence. In fact, there are books written about this from Darwin to Hitler. It is not that Darwin in evolution necessarily has to lead to Hitler’s kind of mentality.
But there was a path that led there. Just like religion doesn’t have to lead to extremism. Sometimes religion leads to extremism.
So, what was this path that Nazi Germany traced? It was that just as within nature, there is a struggle for existence and any species that is unfit, that members of a species or even entire species, they can become, they will be killed and they will become extinct if they are not fit to survive in the struggle of existence. So, it was not just, so Hitler’s Germany at that time took this idea and made it into a governmental policy based on an idea, based on a now discredited idea called social Darwinism. Social Darwinism was that different races in humanity are also in a stage of struggle and evolution.
And Hitler had the idea that the Nazis, we are the descendants of what he considered, so called Aryans and these Aryans had travelled across the world and created civilisation across the world and he thought, we being the descendants of those Aryans, we will again create a fresh civilisation in the world. So, based on that analysis, he felt that the Nazis are the fittest to survive and he decided who all are unfit. For example, he decided that first he started and this was official policy by which say anybody who is what we today call as people with special needs, at that time they could be called as mentally retarded or physically handicapped.
All such people were firstly, they are all forcibly sterilised. They should not reproduce because if they reproduce, they will create that more and more and more. Then after that he decided that these gipsies, they are also primitive race and his idea was that actually nature will anyway eliminate these people.
So, we can help nature along the way. We can help. So, then he had gipsies where, then after that he reinterpreted history in such a way, he said the Jews are a scourge on humanity and the Jews need to be eliminated for the elimination of humanity.
For the elimination of Jews will lead to the evolution of humanity and especially the evolution of the Nazis who are meant to be at the top of the hierarchy of races within humanity. And thus there was a holocaust. Now these programmes of forced sterilisation, forced segregation, these were not just one or two or a few hundred, not just a few thousands, millions.
That is the area of research called eugenics. Eugenics means that we try to scientifically manipulate the genetic pool of humanity so that a superhuman race or the race of the best humans will emerge. So, at that time, this was justified using science and this was implemented using science.
Now we recoiled at the idea of say, of killing someone just because they are deficient in some ways. But now many scientists also at that time recoiled against those ideas. But there was nothing within their science which would make them recoil.
See, from a scientific perspective, there is no intrinsic worth to human life or for that matter, any life at all. But let us stick to human life right now. There is no intrinsic worth to human life from a scientific perspective.
Why not? Because we are just biological robots. So now we all feel a sense of horror when any human being is killed and especially if our ideology is rationalised to kill thousands of human beings, a large number. But where does this revulsion come from? The idea of the sanctity of human life is not rationally inferable from any scientific theory.
So the study of what matters, that is something which is vital for us to make decisions in life. Einstein himself said that we can talk about the ethical foundations of science, but we can’t talk about the scientific foundation of ethics. That means, we can discuss, you know, is science being used ethically or unethically? But can science itself develop the ethical instinct within people? No.
Now, this is not to say that scientists are not ethical. This is a very clear point I want to make, that scientists, many scientists may be and are very principled, very ethical, but there is nothing within the purely naturalistic study as done by science to bring about that ethical, to bring about that ethical sense. The study of what matters, that is spirituality.
Spirituality uses the overall sense of reality and by that overall sense of reality, why does life have its sanctity? Spirituality tells us that, you know, nature has its sanctity because nature is a manifestation of God’s grace. Life has its sanctity because every life is a spark of the divine. And that vision of sanctity comes from spirituality.
So when we have a proper understanding of what matters, it helps us make better choices. It helps us to see our life as valuable and ultimately helps us to become better human beings. So science makes things better.
Spirituality makes people better. Science can give us better control over the outer world so that we can have better things, better gadgets. But spirituality can help us to understand what matters clearly.
Our values get defined and refined by spiritual growth. And then by that, we can actually become better human beings. So now everybody has a certain understanding of what matters.
For Hitler, what mattered was creating a new human, a new phase in human history by eliminating all those obstacles. So his hierarchies were inverted and perverted. So the values that we have, those values need to be defined and refined.
And that defining and refining of values is done through spirituality. Spirituality makes people better. And thus, if science and spirituality come together, then we can make the world better.
We make things better, we make people better, and we make the world better. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. We discussed on the topic of can a rational person be spiritual? And how can science and spirituality go together? So the first thing I talked about is how rationality points to a reality beyond rationality.
That rationality is the idea of reason, logic, and especially in modern science, it is codified through the language of math. So if, people just assume that if you are rational, then you can’t believe anything spiritual like God or soul or such stuff. But what is the basis for that claim? That if we equate rationality with atheism, or anti-spirituality, then the question comes up, why should the universe have any rational order within it? And why should our minds have the capacity to think rationally? If we are just geared for survival, then we don’t need rational thinking about the abstract questions or the big questions of life for survival itself.
So, so rationality has no explanation for why rationality exists and why rationality works. Why rationality exists means, why do our brains think rationally? Why do our minds think rationally? And why rationality works means, why does nature follow the laws of math? We discussed Nobel for that. Then I discussed about how God and rationality, God is not an explanation for the unexplainable.
Oh, science can’t explain it, therefore we need God. No, God is the explanation for explainability. Why is science able to discover the laws of nature in terms of expression language of math? Because there is some higher intelligence which is underlying nature and has infused nature with rationality, which we discover.
So, God is not an explanatory alternative to science. He is an explanatory foundation for science. And then we discussed how God is not just one being among many beings.
He is not even the best of all beings. He is the basis of all beings. God is the existence who makes all existence possible.
So, to ask who created God is like asking who made a circle circular. That’s the definition. So, to ask who created God is to presume that God exists within time.
But God exists outside time. He creates time and he creates through time. So, it’s like a student, a child reading a Harry Potter novel and asking where is JK Rowling within it.
So, God is not like an undiscovered satellite around Jupiter that further research will find. God exists beyond nature, beyond the fabric of space and time. Then we talked about how there is below rational, there is irrational and above rational, there is transrational.
And what is transrational? We discussed about miracles. There can be some special occasions when God intervenes into the working of nature and suspend the laws as happened when Krishna lifted the Govardhan Hill. So, miracles are not against science, they are above science.
And the transrational is often what is the most inspirational in human beings. If we are purely rational creatures, we might never sacrifice our, risk our lives for somebody else’s life. But when we do that, that is inspirational.
So, humans are, humanity needs to utilise rationality, but humanity is not restricted to rationality alone. The last part I talked about how science and spirituality can go together. There I talked about how the study of matter and the study of what matters.
Science is the study of matter, spirituality is the study of what matters. What matters means, what is more important, what is less important, what are the values that should be guiding my life and my decision making. So, we discussed how science was misused by Nazi Germany for a horrendous scientific experiment that led to the killing of millions of people.
And before that also, before the Holocaust also, there was so much sterilisation and other terrible things were done in the idea of eugenics. So, now that people should be killed so that a better race can evolve, that is a revolting idea. But this revolting feeling, the sense of repulsion, that doesn’t come from science alone.
For science, there is no inherent sanctity to any life or human life in particular also. It is spirituality that gives sanctity to nature. So, even the, we could have a separate class on environmentalism also, but the environment infuses some sanctity because we understand that it is not just mechanical forces working, you know, it is God, God’s nature.
We are all having the spark of the divine. Every life is a spark of the divine. So, by spiritual understanding, our values become defined and refined.
And thus, spiritual growth, spiritual advancement can make us better human beings. So, science can make things better, spirituality can make people better, and together science and spirituality can make the world better. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So, there are a lot of questions here. So, how can I develop my faith in God when my mind is full of doubt or dilemmas? Well, it is through discussions like these.
I raise specific questions, have the questions addressed, and by that gradually our doubts can be dealt with. So, essentially, spirituality is not a matter of blind faith. It is a matter of, we use our reasoning to understand how to move forward in our lives.
And I will take only one question right now. So, students are, the government teaches that the students should be taught the theory of evolution even in devotee run schools. So, what should we do about that? We have to clearly understand what is the issue of concern over here.
So, with respect to evolution, there are three aspects to it. I have an article on the spiritual scientist and we can send you a link for this afterward. But I will try to explain it right now.
See, there is evolution as an observed phenomenon. That means, that living beings adapt to nature. And that adaptation can be artificially done also, as we can have small apples and big apples.
So, that living beings adapt to nature is a well-known fact. So, that is an observed phenomenon. And second is evolution as an inferred mechanism.
So, an observed phenomenon about changes. Inferred mechanism for all changes. Now, from these observations, some scientists use the word microevolution for this.
Microevolution is, we could say, variation within species. There is no need to dispute that at all. We fully accept that.
In fact, one of the skills that Krishna learns in his Gurukul, as described in the 10th Kandoshyamad Bhagavatam, is plant breeding. How to create the most beautiful flowers, the most delicious fruits by causing interbreeding between two. So, that living beings can adapt and improve.
That is something which is accepted. So, most of the evidence for evolution that is presented today in the textbooks of evolution is at the first level. It is observed phenomena, and most of them are microvariations.
Sorry, it is called microevolution. That is their variation within species. Now, second is that evolution as an inferred mechanism for change across species.
That means one species changing to another through evolution. Now, for this, the evidence is significantly sketchy. It is nowhere often most evolutionary scientists give evidence for the first and presume that that evidence works for the second also.
So, what is the second? Second is that evolution is a mechanism that has brought about the stunning variety of all life forms on earth. So, it is an inferred mechanism. So, now, the jury for this is out.
There are a significant minority of scientists also who oppose this. But even this is not our major issue. Now, we could conceivably say that living beings can be endowed with abilities to adapt to their environments.
And if those adaptations happen, then that does not deny the existence of an intelligence. But it actually points to the intelligence, say, which is even more significant. It is like, suppose you have a, say, nowadays we have speech recognition softwares.
So, with the speech recognition softwares, they might come with a certain programme module. And if that is all they work with, they might work well. But if that AI module, artificial intelligence module, which uses the speech recognition for converting, for example, speech to text, if that has self-learning ability, self-learning means, say, if we train it, this is how I pronounce this word, and it remembers that and starts using that.
So, then that does not, so self-learning ability in a software programme does not in any way disprove the existence of the programmer. In fact, the self-learning ability in a programme testifies to the brilliance of the programmer. Now, to just create a one-time code, which this is how it will work for all time, that is great.
That is, but to create self-learning ability, that requires even greater intelligence. So, if nature has the capacity to evolve, that in no way disproves the existence of God. So, even the second aspect of nature, now, we are not saying that evolution is true or evolution is false.
See, we are not scientists. And we cannot claim that we know science better than scientists. That would be presumptuous.
So, Shrila Prabhupada was usually, whenever he made some statements on evolution, he was usually presented evolution as atheistic. But evolution intrinsically doesn’t have to be God. In fact, if nature has the capacity to evolve, that could mean that it actually points to the brilliance of the designer of nature.
So, again, I am not taking a position over here, but I am just talking about three levels. So, first level, we do not have any problem at all with the observed phenomena. Second is as an inferred mechanism.
Well, let science decide about that. But what the real issue is the third. The third is evolution as an all-explaining ideology.
Evolution as, it’s almost like a magic wand, which explains how life originated, and how life spread across the world, and how all life forms came about. Now, this is not science, this is ideology. That ideology means, if you go down to the evolution of consciousness, the scientific, leave alone evidence for that, even the theoretical possibility of how life may have evolved, and how consciousness may have evolved, this is extremely speculative, and absolutely no, so many things will be required that it’s, whether it can happen, whether it can happen is considered almost an impossibility.
So, the point is, the idea that evolution is an explanatory basis for all of existence, that is not science, that is an ideology. And our main concern is not with the first, or even with the second, it is primarily with the third, that evolution as an all-explaining ideology. So, what was Srila Prabhupada’s main concern? Prabhupada said life comes from life.
And evolution itself, as nature having the adaptability to modify itself based on changed circumstances, that does not disclude life comes from life. It is only when we go to the origins, and with respect to origins, origin of life, origin of consciousness, evolution doesn’t have any coherent explanation at all. So, we need to choose our battles carefully, that we understand this three-level conception, and we have, our main concern is not with the science.
If you read Srila Prabhupada’s detailed conversation on Darwin, which is given in the Veda base, when he’s presented evidence, you know, but we have this particular fossil, and Prabhupada gives various explanations for that. Prabhupada doesn’t dismiss the evidence. So, we have to be very careful.
What is our concern with evolution? It is when evolution is used as an all-explaining magic wand, it becomes an ideological claim to justify materialism and atheism, and to reject God. That is our concern. So, we need to, we need to understand clearly what is the issue of concern, and address it appropriately.
Now, all the other questions are also important, and I will answer these on my website, and we will, before the next session, we will send you the answers on our WhatsApp group. Thank you. Hare Krishna.