How God acts in the world-Scriptural & contemporary worldviews, Bhaktivedanta Manor, London
Transcript
This is AI generated transcript and may contain some errors
In this section of the Srimad Bhagavatam the Devatas are describing how the material world functions and I’ll talk in this session in three broad parts I’ll talk about the scriptural context then I’ll talk about the modern context and then I’ll talk about the linking the two so broadly speaking here Sri Prabhupada in the purport is making several interesting points there are places where the Devatas are referred to as so we’ll talk about the scriptural context what is going on in this particular section then Prabhupada talks about the contemporary context in the purport so we’ll talk about that and then linking the contexts how much is that possible and how is it possible so what is the scriptural context that is going on over here here Prabhupada is talking about the Devatas praying to the lord and he is giving us a vision of the universe where the earth is in the middle and above is broadly the domain of the Devatas and these Devatas are praying to the all pervading supreme lord and to the extent they are praying to him Prabhupada is talking about Devatas in two remarkable terms over here he is saying they are intellectuals so now the Devatas are generally especially depending on whom we refer to if you consider Indra he is a quintessential Kshatriya Indra is a warrior Brahma is more like a Brahmana Prabhupada is using the word intellectuals in the sense of one who is intellectually aware of the bigger picture and then Prabhupada is also referring to them, equating them with devotees even pure devotees not all the Devatas are pure devotees and many of the narratives in scripture are about how the Devatas are exposed in that way but it depends on what they are doing at what time so here they are offering prayers to the lord with full awareness and in that context Prabhupada is appreciating and then he is framing the discussion from that perspective so the Devatas are themselves considered to be administrators of the universe and they are telling us how the universe actually works so while the Devatas are praying they are saying that you please guide us how we can satisfy you by which you can satisfy us, by which you can provide for our needs so when the Devatas are praying over here and they are using the word we see the word we because it is such an inclusive term it also makes it a very malleable term so for example if we are praying to the deities say then when somebody uses the word we they may be referring to themselves as a whole community referring to and we are the community, we are offering prayers on behalf of the community to the deities but on the other hand if some members of the community come to the management and they say we have these concerns so there we doesn’t refer to the whole community, we refers to the members of the community as separated from the leaders of the community the managers of the community so the word we can mean many different things so in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna uses the same frame of reciprocation and he says we need to perform sacrifice to satisfy the Devatas Devanabhavyatanena Te devabhavyantubhah Parasparambhavyantah Shreyah Paramavapsyatha so he says we satisfy the devatas and the devatas satisfy us so now of course among the devatas there is the supreme lord and Krishna in the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is focussing on Karma Yoga therefore he does not emphasise his position over there so much so in one sense we could say that if we are on the earth then we understand that there is something up there now what that is we don’t know that something up there we don’t know means we may not know something up there something bigger than us is actually maintaining us and we need to harmonise with that so that is if we consider ourselves to be humans but if we consider here we are humans over here on earth and the devatas are over here and we are all a part of the universe and then here we are harmonising with the lord so the word we can refer to both we as earthly beings harmonising with some higher reality and we can also refer to the devatas along with all other living beings so that’s why Upahisham it is said that not only we but all living beings the word says we please guide us how we can satisfy you and then you will provide for us so the idea essentially is that the devatas are articulating what is true for them and is also true for us that we depend on something beyond us for our sustenance and this understanding was implicit in the vedic tradition and not just in the vedic tradition across the world the idea that our human existence is so fragile and vulnerable that we are at the mercy of some powers bigger than ourselves that was almost everywhere across history and geography before the pre-modern times in the pre-modern times specifically in the pre-scientific age that we need if we live in a farming setting where the primary source of sustenance is through agriculture do we depend on rains and now we may choose to believe that the rains come at random or we may choose to believe the rains are governed by some beings but it is very clear that we depend on rains so the idea is that there is some unknown bigger than us which shapes our lives which in fact determines whether we live or die so the closer we are to nature the more obvious it is now it is not that it is not obvious today but the understanding has changed so basically there is I am here and there is some large unknown that shapes my life now that unknown we can perceive could be three ways could be for us could be against us or could be indifferent to us that that unknown which sustains my existence that cares for that likes me that loves me that hates me or that doesn’t even bother whether I exist only three possibilities how we could view that unknown now while it can seem that this unknown which exists somewhere high up doesn’t care for us say when famines occur when disasters occur but the nature of life if we reflect carefully on it is that our very existence is a miracle if we consider how many people are able to survive that if we go to a mansion and we find there are 50 rooms in that mansion and one room is totally disorderly and other 49 rooms are clean and very neat and tidy now we could look at the evidence of the 49 rooms and say there is some caretaker for this room or we could look at the evidence of that one room which is disorderly and say there is no caretaker so it depends similarly in this world the fact that rains occur the fact that grains grow from the earth the fact that what we need is provided for points to not just an organising principle but a benevolent organising principle now it’s also a fact that there are times when these things are not provided for in fact these things are taken away from us so ultimately faith it’s a matter of the choice of evidence if a person wants to not believe in God then they can find abundant evidence for their disbelief in God if a person wants to believe in God they can find more than abundant evidence for belief in God but it is a matter of which evidence a person will focus on so that’s why the saying is that believers need no reasons, non-believers accept no reasons so that’s it’s not a matter of the verdict of the universe in the Prabhupada quotes the verse one part of the verse nityo nityanam chetanas chetnanam eko bahunam yo viddhati kaman that one being sustains all beings now that sustenance if you look at the Upanishadic context is not just physically it is also intellectually that means if somebody wants to disbelieve God somebody wants to deny God’s existence God will sustain their disbelief also so even the power to reject God comes from God Krishna says mattaha smutir jnanam apohanam I give knowledge remembrance and forgetfulness so for someone who wants to focus on the evidence that God doesn’t exist there is no organising principle that is what Krishna will focus on so it’s interesting 15.15 this is the verse that Krishna gives these three things knowledge remembrance and forgetfulness so what is this referring to this comes 15.15 comes after 15.12 to 14 that 12 to 14 is actually Krishna showing how he is the sustainer of the world he talks about in the 12th verse he talks about at the cosmic level at the cosmological level yadadittikatam tejo jagad bhase te akhilam yachchandramasi yachchagnam tat tejo viddhi mamakam the earth could not life could not exist without the sun giving energy and Krishna says it is I who arrange for the sun to give energy then he talks at the terrestrial level the earth is floating in space and gama vishyache bhutani dharyamiya maujisa pushnami cha ushadehi sarva somo bhutvaras atmakaha he says it is I who enter into the earth and it is by my energy I sustain it and then he talks at the ecological and the physiological levels aham vaishvanaro bhutva pranidham deham ashrita prana panasamayukta pachamyannam chaturvidham so he is talking about actually the terrestrial and the ecological both come in the 13th verse so at the ecological level he says it is he who arranges for vegetables to grow by which we can be sustained and then he says he who digests our food actually speaking even when we get food how that food converts into energy is itself a physiological miracle doctors try to replicate organs when they get damaged suppose somebody’s hand is damaged you can get a prosthetic hand somebody’s eyes are damaged you can get glasses somebody’s heart is damaged you can get a pacemaker if somebody’s digestive system is damaged scientists are trying to make an artificial digestive machine even with the best technology it will not be a machine it will be a factory and even with no matter how much crunching of chips you do it is such a complicated process nobody has been able to make an artificial digestive machine till now there are attempts to make but the point is even if they succeed there is a lot of complexity over there so what requires the sustained intelligence of among the most intelligent and dedicated people in that field how does it come out naturally there is some governing principle some organising principle so Krishna says he gives this vision this is what he calls actually as Gyaan Chakshu Gyaan Chakshu can mean many different things the eyes of knowledge so we may not be able to see the spiritual right now but we can see the hand of the divine even in the material so the understanding that the material mechanisms that sustain us have some higher organising principle was implicit in the tradition now I am saying that the 15-15 comes at the end of this so Arjuna has this question if you are maintaining everyone why is it that everyone is not able to see you as the maintainer Krishna says I maintain not just people’s body but also their mind and their mental conceptions so if somebody wants to be an atheist I will give them the knowledge of the evidence in this 50 rooms there is one room which is disorderly just see there that famine happened there this happened and not only that I will give them the remembrance of all that first I will give them the knowledge see we learn so many things but we remember few of them we may have had many interactions with the person but when somebody asks us what do you think about this person it’s not that we at that moment with our brain do a comprehensive recall of all the incidents that we have had with that person and then we give some assessment there are some memories of our interaction with that person that stand out and based on that remembrance we give an assessment so we from what we learn in the Bhagavad Gita knowledge is often equated with perception the taking in of information from all that we take in there is some that we remember and much that we forget and what determines that is our desire so the Devatas are saying please give us remembrance by which we can appreciate what you are doing for us and we can reciprocate appropriately so this is the broad traditional scriptural context now if we move to the contemporary context so in the contemporary context as technology, as science started progressing and especially technology started progressing certain foundational changes in the world view started occurring so Francis Bacon was the pioneer of the scientific method so he had to say that knowledge is power now it’s quoted very often as a universal dictum that knowledge is power and sometimes devotees are also quoted for saying that spiritual knowledge will give us inner power which is true but Francis Bacon used it in a particular sense his idea was that nature is evil nature subjects us to so many sufferings so rather than conceiving of nature as a mother he conceived of nature as a stepmother and he said technological knowledge will give us the power to subordinate this evil stepmother to our will so nature is evil, technology is the power that will help us to tame nature and bend it to our will so technology can be used for many different purposes but basically what happened is that the universe can be seen in three different ways that unknown is benevolent it is indifferent or it is malevolent it is for us, against us or doesn’t care for us so his idea was that I don’t want to zero in on him but the broad idea over there was that nature either doesn’t care for us or nature is against us and therefore we have to learn to control nature and if you see the scientific world view it also acknowledges that there are some realities far stronger than us scientific world view it basically replaces God with the laws of nature since the laws of nature are inviolable truths now interestingly when Prabhupada uses the word laws of nature he uses it to refer to the laws of karma, broadly speaking but when science uses the word laws of nature, it refers to the laws of physics basically physics is considered the most fundamental of sciences and from there other branches of knowledge come up so there the idea is that if we just understand these laws and then we tap into those laws then we will gain power and with that power we will control nature so the idea today has become that there is nothing divine there are only these laws of nature and these laws of nature are supreme now Newton himself formulated or discovered he discovered the laws of nature and he formulated them in mathematical terms for example the laws of gravity and the laws of motion now he accepted that there was a higher organising principle which brought about the laws of nature so see if we human beings are existing and say for him an apple fell on his head that is a legend so now why did the apple fall on his head? he wanted an explanation for that he accepted the idea that there is a God and he saw when he discovered the law of gravity or the laws of motion he said oh father I think thy thoughts after thee he accepted that God is the ultimate cause but he wanted to know the material mechanism by which the apple fell and he came up with gravity and he saw that God it is you who have authored the law of gravity so the idea is there is a mechanical explanation that for the apple falling but beyond that that mechanical explanation doesn’t have to be the only explanation there can be a still bigger explanation and that is the divine explanation or the personal explanation so things can be explained at multiple levels right now when I am speaking how am I able to speak? you could say because there is a functioning sound system that’s one explanation perfectly valid explanation you could go bigger and say there is a functioning power board power supply system in the United Kingdoms and that’s why this is functioning so the two explanations are not contradictory they are complementary that this sound system is functioning and that’s why I am able to speak and there is a functioning electricity board and that’s why we are able to speak so there can be multiple levels of explanations that the rains are caused by clouds is not unknown to any thoughtful person now the rains are caused by the devatas that is another level of explanation so if you see in the Govardhan Leela or in the broad Vedic tradition it is understood that rains come from clouds but we don’t close the explanatory frame at that level itself this is one level of explanation but there is another level also so can the mechanical and we could say the divine or the personal go together that is the Vedic understanding say for example there is a cricket match and say there is a final and the bowler bowls and you need six runs to win and the batsman just hits a six and then after there is a post match interview the interviewer asks how did you hit the six and the batsman says by Newton’s laws of motion now is that a valid explanation well yeah you could say the ball came at this speed he moved the bat at this speed the ball and the bat met at this angle and that’s why the ball was propelled over the fence that’s an okay explanation but that’s not the relevant explanation when the interviewer is asking did you anticipate that he would bowl a bouncer and not a Yorker how did you practise the hook shot have you practised this before so he wants a personal explanation so the personal and the mechanical can go together but what happened in the modern context is as we started so originally the idea was that there was theism theism means God is the creator and the controller both then we had what was called as deism where God is the creator but not the controller there are laws but the laws are what are controlling now God is not in charge like this clock surely somebody made this clock but that person who made the clock is not controlling it if we just understand how the clock functions we disassemble it then we can change the time we can change how it depicts so the universe became more like a clock rather than a personal design in our arguments for the existence of God we say God is a designer and God is a lawmaker but these two are completely different arguments if we say God is a lawmaker then God doesn’t have to be the designer if things are manufactured by law that means say if there is a manufacturing unit which operates by a particular algorithm that okay you mix this ingredient mix this ingredient put this pressure and we get this particular circular keychain so now the mechanical law is making it then there is no designer for it you could say there is a designer for the law but the designer is not designing the product the law is designing the product so what happened was with time the idea of the universe became deistic that God is the creator but he is not the controller the controller is the laws of nature and then after that we came up with atheism where God is neither the creator nor the controller both as done by the laws of nature and so the modern view is largely Prabhupada talks about economic development the modern view is largely that if we just do sufficient economic development then there will be prosperity and the idea is nature is providing us some resources and nature’s resources are limited if we have too much population growth then we will have scarcity now Malthus was a proponent of that and there are many others who have bought into that theory and you could say there is some truth to it but the question is there is a difference between some truth and sole truth that so that the laws of nature and control, is that truth? Yes, there is some truth so the material truth like the mechanical explanation the bat hit the ball at this angle and that’s why the ball went over the boundary is that true? Yes, that’s true material or not just material, you can say mechanical truth it’s some truth but some truth is not the sole truth so the mistake which science or especially those who have used science to propagate atheism, have done is what is some truth they have made it the sole truth so yes, if we consider the earth is going to provide a certain amount of resources and we have a certain number of living beings then how are we going to survive if the number of living beings increase but what we are not figuring in is that how much does the earth produce what determines what the earth produces so is it simply the mechanical laws of nature or is something more going on so in the contemporary context the higher explanations have been neglected or rejected and that is why the mainstream operational way of functioning is non-theistic people may not be atheistic but they are at least non-theistic ok God is not a factor so how do we, this is the second part it’s not useful to demonise people who say that that if population increases there will be a problem that is a valid conception if we have a particular frame of looking at things so how do we link these two contexts is there a way to do that, that’s the last part I’ll conclude with that so the contemporary context where the laws of nature are considered to be supreme and we just tap into the laws of nature and the traditional scriptural context where God is understood to be the supreme so if we want to link or harmonise the two contexts there are broadly wherever we are first is appreciate now we need to appreciate that there is something higher beyond us that controls us and that is not difficult to appreciate at all some people may say it’s the government controlling me it’s the deep state controlling me it is some some dark people some literati or whatever, people have different ideas of that something, somewhere, someone is controlling and manipulating everyone like puppets, people have that idea people may have different theories some theories are labelled as conspiracy theories but we appreciate that there is some controllership now can there be a hierarchy of controllership there is a controllership and is there a supreme controller Ishwara Paramakrishna so if we appreciate that there is some controller might there be some higher controller about that if somebody is saying that say, you know the government is evil and the government is controlling the world this particular political party is evil this particular group of people are terrible ok, they may be so we are acknowledging that there is some controllership, so is there some controllership about it so if we move upward the vision, sometimes especially in today’s world we can become so conscious of specific forces that we deem evil that we can forget God people from this particular religion are evil people from this particular region are terrible people from this are terrible so appreciate that there is some highest controller there are levels of controllership but there is a highest controller and now it’s a matter of choice for us is that highest controller also evil is that highest controller indifferent or good for us so that’s where only at the intellectual level we can’t really realise, the next is connect so if we are focused in the, I will make two quick points and conclude this session one of the fundamental problems in the western philosophical tradition was that right from the birth of science basically theorising and practising became separated religion was largely associated with Christianity and Christianity itself became for various reasons largely a matter of believing rather than a matter of practising to realise the beliefs in the mainstream Christian practises nowadays there is very little of what can be called as sadhana, yes you go to a church and you offer prayers, give some donations but ok, I acknowledge that God is there but there are no practises designed for raising human consciousness so it’s like say I am existing over here and say this is the material domain in which I exist so now here if I look I can both see that there is some arrangement there is some lack of arrangement so I can look at what is the arrangement and appreciate it but I can always see oh this thing went wrong in my life, maybe God doesn’t exist so we need to have some tangible practises by which we appreciate that there is some higher controller but what is the nature of that controller we cannot know that unless we have some practises to connect with that higher reality and in the western tradition there are many philosophers and many of them are very intelligent but they had no sadhana no tangible practise to actually realise what they were talking about so there has to be some kind of spiritual practise to connect with the reality so the Gita sometimes offers us another world view there are so many world views there, Gita also offers another world view well that is true that is at the level of philosophy but the Gita also gives us practise, it gives us yoga practise, it gives us bhakti yoga and that means it offers us another world to view not just another world view another way of looking at this world but rather the Gita connects us with a higher reality, there is another world to view and when we connect with that higher reality, that is the time we start understanding that this reality is not only maintaining me in this world but is actually my ultimate goon bhavnam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyate vasudevah sarvam iti samatma sudurlabha so we connect and then ultimately that reality becomes our target that I don’t just want to connect so that that reality will provide me things in this world, rather I want to connect with that reality because that reality is the ultimate goal of my life so if we are going to look only at the material level, even as devotees if we are going to primarily focus on material consciousness then the evidence will always be ambivalent now one devotee may be terribly sick and they get cancer and they get miraculously cured Krishna is so merciful another devotee gets cancer and they try so much and nothing happens and they die so was Krishna not merciful at that time? recently when there was an assassination attempt on Trump, the Christian pastors, several of them said oh this was an act of God Jesus saved him there was some Indian devotee later said oh once in a long, once in a lifetime ago he had served Jagannath and that’s why Jagannath protected him well you can find evidence for God’s action in this world but others can always find evidence for God’s non-action in this world so ok, both people you can ask ok so God protected this president but in that crossfire some innocent person was shot, why didn’t God protect that person? is God partial to this person and not to that person? so now can we see God’s role in this world? yes we can but my point is there are always sceptics who can say ok God acted here, why didn’t God act here? in the scriptures Hanuman was victoriously successful Jatayu was not Jatayu was killed, brutally killed so if we are only looking at the material level then the evidence for Krishna’s intervention and protection will be ambivalent, it won’t be conclusive it’s only when we connect with Krishna and we make Krishna as our target then we understand that Krishna provides for us Krishna uplifts us, Krishna cares for us even when the evidence of his caring for us at the material level is absent so the way to actually we will not be able to challenge a theism and defeat it at the material level of argumentation of course we can challenge it and counter it and point out counter evidence that based on the verdict of the world we can establish a theism is also a reasonable and defensible belief system but that it is the preferable it is the beneficial way of looking at the world that will come only through practise that is so when we connect with the Lord so appreciate connect and target when we act that is when we start realising that actually Krishna is the maintainer so in today’s world if we tell people this many times sometimes if we are not aware of the context so some war happens and I have seen devotees on Quora and social media saying that oh you know because animals are being killed and babies are being aborted that’s why all these wars are happening now devotees who make such statement get brutally trolled now is there truth to that? of course there is truth to that but for people who are not able to see that world view all that they see is they are seeing things from a particular framework this country attacked over here that’s the cause how do we resolve this? now we are talking from another world view a bigger framework and for those who have not bought into that framework who have not even understood that framework our statements seem not only unreasonable but they simply seem cruelly opportunistic that means you are profiting from people’s pain to stuff your ideology down our throat that’s what happens and when we do it we think it’s reasonable but in Nepal when big earthquake had happened there was an American pastor who said this earthquake occurred Nepal or North India he said because all these people over there are idol worshippers and Jesus taught them so that they would all give up idol worship and they will become believers in the one true God and actually to some extent it happened because Christians went and gave a lot of humanitarian support on the condition that you become Christians so after the natural calamity there was a huge conversion of people to Christianity and what he saw? he saw that this was an act of God to inspire people to come towards God now when somebody from some other religion does that we feel it’s an outrageous claim but that’s how people will see it when we make that claim so yes is there a validity to the karma world view to the bhakti world view? of course it is there but that world view needs to be communicated appropriately without that we will not only alienate but even antagonise people and if we say that anybody who doesn’t accept this abortion and animal slaughter that is causing all this that person is a demon well not necessarily some of them could be demoniac but many of them are just ignorant they don’t know this world view and they are trying to make sense of life based on the world view that they are operating so it has to be very carefully done connecting people who are operating within a particular world view to the spiritual world view I will summarise what I discussed today we talked about broadly appreciating god’s role in our lives so I talked about in three broad terms first was the scriptural context what is being said over here is that the universe we depend on some unknown and that unknown is favourable to us now the unknown could be neutral the unknown could also be unfavourable but the vedic understanding was it is favourable and we harmonise with that unknown so we harmonise with that higher reality through giving offerings, through worship through sacrifice so the modern context or the contemporary context is that we only look at the mechanical explanation we don’t look at the personal explanation so because of that the idea is we just manipulate material nature manipulation through technology and everything will be provided for that is what leads to provision so how do we connect the two? by three things first we appreciate there is some controller maybe there is a hierarchy of controllers and maybe the highest controller is a benevolent controller we connect with that higher controller through tangible practises that raise our vision from the material to the spiritual and eventually that spiritual reality becomes our target, it’s only when that happens that we can see the benevolence of God and that’s how we can see how the lord is connected with us appreciate is the first step there are two world views where the contemporary world view and the scriptural world view can intersect and how we can communicate scriptural message to people that has to be done very intelligently, how not to do it I explain through the example of violence and wars in this world thank you very much Hare Krishna Krantraj Srimad Bhagavatam ki Srila Prabhupada ki Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Jai Jai Gaur Prema Anandi
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
In this section of the Srimad Bhagavatam the Devatas are describing how the material world functions and I’ll talk in this session in three broad parts I’ll talk about the scriptural context then I’ll talk about the modern context and then I’ll talk about the linking the two so broadly speaking here Sri Prabhupada in the purport is making several interesting points there are places where the Devatas are referred to as so we’ll talk about the scriptural context what is going on in this particular section then Prabhupada talks about the contemporary context in the purport so we’ll talk about that and then linking the contexts how much is that possible and how is it possible so what is the scriptural context that is going on over here here Prabhupada is talking about the Devatas praying to the lord and he is giving us a vision of the universe where the earth is in the middle and above is broadly the domain of the Devatas and these Devatas are praying to the all pervading supreme lord and to the extent they are praying to him Prabhupada is talking about Devatas in two remarkable terms over here he is saying they are intellectuals so now the Devatas are generally especially depending on whom we refer to if you consider Indra he is a quintessential Kshatriya Indra is a warrior Brahma is more like a Brahmana Prabhupada is using the word intellectuals in the sense of one who is intellectually aware of the bigger picture and then Prabhupada is also referring to them, equating them with devotees even pure devotees not all the Devatas are pure devotees and many of the narratives in scripture are about how the Devatas are exposed in that way but it depends on what they are doing at what time so here they are offering prayers to the lord with full awareness and in that context Prabhupada is appreciating and then he is framing the discussion from that perspective so the Devatas are themselves considered to be administrators of the universe and they are telling us how the universe actually works so while the Devatas are praying they are saying that you please guide us how we can satisfy you by which you can satisfy us, by which you can provide for our needs so when the Devatas are praying over here and they are using the word we see the word we because it is such an inclusive term it also makes it a very malleable term so for example if we are praying to the deities say then when somebody uses the word we they may be referring to themselves as a whole community referring to and we are the community, we are offering prayers on behalf of the community to the deities but on the other hand if some members of the community come to the management and they say we have these concerns so there we doesn’t refer to the whole community, we refers to the members of the community as separated from the leaders of the community the managers of the community so the word we can mean many different things so in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna uses the same frame of reciprocation and he says we need to perform sacrifice to satisfy the Devatas Devanabhavyatanena Te devabhavyantubhah Parasparambhavyantah Shreyah Paramavapsyatha so he says we satisfy the devatas and the devatas satisfy us so now of course among the devatas there is the supreme lord and Krishna in the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is focussing on Karma Yoga therefore he does not emphasise his position over there so much so in one sense we could say that if we are on the earth then we understand that there is something up there now what that is we don’t know that something up there we don’t know means we may not know something up there something bigger than us is actually maintaining us and we need to harmonise with that so that is if we consider ourselves to be humans but if we consider here we are humans over here on earth and the devatas are over here and we are all a part of the universe and then here we are harmonising with the lord so the word we can refer to both we as earthly beings harmonising with some higher reality and we can also refer to the devatas along with all other living beings so that’s why Upahisham it is said that not only we but all living beings the word says we please guide us how we can satisfy you and then you will provide for us so the idea essentially is that the devatas are articulating what is true for them and is also true for us that we depend on something beyond us for our sustenance and this understanding was implicit in the vedic tradition and not just in the vedic tradition across the world the idea that our human existence is so fragile and vulnerable that we are at the mercy of some powers bigger than ourselves that was almost everywhere across history and geography before the pre-modern times in the pre-modern times specifically in the pre-scientific age that we need if we live in a farming setting where the primary source of sustenance is through agriculture do we depend on rains and now we may choose to believe that the rains come at random or we may choose to believe the rains are governed by some beings but it is very clear that we depend on rains so the idea is that there is some unknown bigger than us which shapes our lives which in fact determines whether we live or die so the closer we are to nature the more obvious it is now it is not that it is not obvious today but the understanding has changed so basically there is I am here and there is some large unknown that shapes my life now that unknown we can perceive could be three ways could be for us could be against us or could be indifferent to us that that unknown which sustains my existence that cares for that likes me that loves me that hates me or that doesn’t even bother whether I exist only three possibilities how we could view that unknown now while it can seem that this unknown which exists somewhere high up doesn’t care for us say when famines occur when disasters occur but the nature of life if we reflect carefully on it is that our very existence is a miracle if we consider how many people are able to survive that if we go to a mansion and we find there are 50 rooms in that mansion and one room is totally disorderly and other 49 rooms are clean and very neat and tidy now we could look at the evidence of the 49 rooms and say there is some caretaker for this room or we could look at the evidence of that one room which is disorderly and say there is no caretaker so it depends similarly in this world the fact that rains occur the fact that grains grow from the earth the fact that what we need is provided for points to not just an organising principle but a benevolent organising principle now it’s also a fact that there are times when these things are not provided for in fact these things are taken away from us so ultimately faith it’s a matter of the choice of evidence if a person wants to not believe in God then they can find abundant evidence for their disbelief in God if a person wants to believe in God they can find more than abundant evidence for belief in God but it is a matter of which evidence a person will focus on so that’s why the saying is that believers need no reasons, non-believers accept no reasons so that’s it’s not a matter of the verdict of the universe in the Prabhupada quotes the verse one part of the verse nityo nityanam chetanas chetnanam eko bahunam yo viddhati kaman that one being sustains all beings now that sustenance if you look at the Upanishadic context is not just physically it is also intellectually that means if somebody wants to disbelieve God somebody wants to deny God’s existence God will sustain their disbelief also so even the power to reject God comes from God Krishna says mattaha smutir jnanam apohanam I give knowledge remembrance and forgetfulness so for someone who wants to focus on the evidence that God doesn’t exist there is no organising principle that is what Krishna will focus on so it’s interesting 15.15 this is the verse that Krishna gives these three things knowledge remembrance and forgetfulness so what is this referring to this comes 15.15 comes after 15.12 to 14 that 12 to 14 is actually Krishna showing how he is the sustainer of the world he talks about in the 12th verse he talks about at the cosmic level at the cosmological level yadadittikatam tejo jagad bhase te akhilam yachchandramasi yachchagnam tat tejo viddhi mamakam the earth could not life could not exist without the sun giving energy and Krishna says it is I who arrange for the sun to give energy then he talks at the terrestrial level the earth is floating in space and gama vishyache bhutani dharyamiya maujisa pushnami cha ushadehi sarva somo bhutvaras atmakaha he says it is I who enter into the earth and it is by my energy I sustain it and then he talks at the ecological and the physiological levels aham vaishvanaro bhutva pranidham deham ashrita prana panasamayukta pachamyannam chaturvidham so he is talking about actually the terrestrial and the ecological both come in the 13th verse so at the ecological level he says it is he who arranges for vegetables to grow by which we can be sustained and then he says he who digests our food actually speaking even when we get food how that food converts into energy is itself a physiological miracle doctors try to replicate organs when they get damaged suppose somebody’s hand is damaged you can get a prosthetic hand somebody’s eyes are damaged you can get glasses somebody’s heart is damaged you can get a pacemaker if somebody’s digestive system is damaged scientists are trying to make an artificial digestive machine even with the best technology it will not be a machine it will be a factory and even with no matter how much crunching of chips you do it is such a complicated process nobody has been able to make an artificial digestive machine till now there are attempts to make but the point is even if they succeed there is a lot of complexity over there so what requires the sustained intelligence of among the most intelligent and dedicated people in that field how does it come out naturally there is some governing principle some organising principle so Krishna says he gives this vision this is what he calls actually as Gyaan Chakshu Gyaan Chakshu can mean many different things the eyes of knowledge so we may not be able to see the spiritual right now but we can see the hand of the divine even in the material so the understanding that the material mechanisms that sustain us have some higher organising principle was implicit in the tradition now I am saying that the 15-15 comes at the end of this so Arjuna has this question if you are maintaining everyone why is it that everyone is not able to see you as the maintainer Krishna says I maintain not just people’s body but also their mind and their mental conceptions so if somebody wants to be an atheist I will give them the knowledge of the evidence in this 50 rooms there is one room which is disorderly just see there that famine happened there this happened and not only that I will give them the remembrance of all that first I will give them the knowledge see we learn so many things but we remember few of them we may have had many interactions with the person but when somebody asks us what do you think about this person it’s not that we at that moment with our brain do a comprehensive recall of all the incidents that we have had with that person and then we give some assessment there are some memories of our interaction with that person that stand out and based on that remembrance we give an assessment so we from what we learn in the Bhagavad Gita knowledge is often equated with perception the taking in of information from all that we take in there is some that we remember and much that we forget and what determines that is our desire so the Devatas are saying please give us remembrance by which we can appreciate what you are doing for us and we can reciprocate appropriately so this is the broad traditional scriptural context now if we move to the contemporary context so in the contemporary context as technology, as science started progressing and especially technology started progressing certain foundational changes in the world view started occurring so Francis Bacon was the pioneer of the scientific method so he had to say that knowledge is power now it’s quoted very often as a universal dictum that knowledge is power and sometimes devotees are also quoted for saying that spiritual knowledge will give us inner power which is true but Francis Bacon used it in a particular sense his idea was that nature is evil nature subjects us to so many sufferings so rather than conceiving of nature as a mother he conceived of nature as a stepmother and he said technological knowledge will give us the power to subordinate this evil stepmother to our will so nature is evil, technology is the power that will help us to tame nature and bend it to our will so technology can be used for many different purposes but basically what happened is that the universe can be seen in three different ways that unknown is benevolent it is indifferent or it is malevolent it is for us, against us or doesn’t care for us so his idea was that I don’t want to zero in on him but the broad idea over there was that nature either doesn’t care for us or nature is against us and therefore we have to learn to control nature and if you see the scientific world view it also acknowledges that there are some realities far stronger than us scientific world view it basically replaces God with the laws of nature since the laws of nature are inviolable truths now interestingly when Prabhupada uses the word laws of nature he uses it to refer to the laws of karma, broadly speaking but when science uses the word laws of nature, it refers to the laws of physics basically physics is considered the most fundamental of sciences and from there other branches of knowledge come up so there the idea is that if we just understand these laws and then we tap into those laws then we will gain power and with that power we will control nature so the idea today has become that there is nothing divine there are only these laws of nature and these laws of nature are supreme now Newton himself formulated or discovered he discovered the laws of nature and he formulated them in mathematical terms for example the laws of gravity and the laws of motion now he accepted that there was a higher organising principle which brought about the laws of nature so see if we human beings are existing and say for him an apple fell on his head that is a legend so now why did the apple fall on his head? he wanted an explanation for that he accepted the idea that there is a God and he saw when he discovered the law of gravity or the laws of motion he said oh father I think thy thoughts after thee he accepted that God is the ultimate cause but he wanted to know the material mechanism by which the apple fell and he came up with gravity and he saw that God it is you who have authored the law of gravity so the idea is there is a mechanical explanation that for the apple falling but beyond that that mechanical explanation doesn’t have to be the only explanation there can be a still bigger explanation and that is the divine explanation or the personal explanation so things can be explained at multiple levels right now when I am speaking how am I able to speak? you could say because there is a functioning sound system that’s one explanation perfectly valid explanation you could go bigger and say there is a functioning power board power supply system in the United Kingdoms and that’s why this is functioning so the two explanations are not contradictory they are complementary that this sound system is functioning and that’s why I am able to speak and there is a functioning electricity board and that’s why we are able to speak so there can be multiple levels of explanations that the rains are caused by clouds is not unknown to any thoughtful person now the rains are caused by the devatas that is another level of explanation so if you see in the Govardhan Leela or in the broad Vedic tradition it is understood that rains come from clouds but we don’t close the explanatory frame at that level itself this is one level of explanation but there is another level also so can the mechanical and we could say the divine or the personal go together that is the Vedic understanding say for example there is a cricket match and say there is a final and the bowler bowls and you need six runs to win and the batsman just hits a six and then after there is a post match interview the interviewer asks how did you hit the six and the batsman says by Newton’s laws of motion now is that a valid explanation well yeah you could say the ball came at this speed he moved the bat at this speed the ball and the bat met at this angle and that’s why the ball was propelled over the fence that’s an okay explanation but that’s not the relevant explanation when the interviewer is asking did you anticipate that he would bowl a bouncer and not a Yorker how did you practise the hook shot have you practised this before so he wants a personal explanation so the personal and the mechanical can go together but what happened in the modern context is as we started so originally the idea was that there was theism theism means God is the creator and the controller both then we had what was called as deism where God is the creator but not the controller there are laws but the laws are what are controlling now God is not in charge like this clock surely somebody made this clock but that person who made the clock is not controlling it if we just understand how the clock functions we disassemble it then we can change the time we can change how it depicts so the universe became more like a clock rather than a personal design in our arguments for the existence of God we say God is a designer and God is a lawmaker but these two are completely different arguments if we say God is a lawmaker then God doesn’t have to be the designer if things are manufactured by law that means say if there is a manufacturing unit which operates by a particular algorithm that okay you mix this ingredient mix this ingredient put this pressure and we get this particular circular keychain so now the mechanical law is making it then there is no designer for it you could say there is a designer for the law but the designer is not designing the product the law is designing the product so what happened was with time the idea of the universe became deistic that God is the creator but he is not the controller the controller is the laws of nature and then after that we came up with atheism where God is neither the creator nor the controller both as done by the laws of nature and so the modern view is largely Prabhupada talks about economic development the modern view is largely that if we just do sufficient economic development then there will be prosperity and the idea is nature is providing us some resources and nature’s resources are limited if we have too much population growth then we will have scarcity now Malthus was a proponent of that and there are many others who have bought into that theory and you could say there is some truth to it but the question is there is a difference between some truth and sole truth that so that the laws of nature and control, is that truth? Yes, there is some truth so the material truth like the mechanical explanation the bat hit the ball at this angle and that’s why the ball went over the boundary is that true? Yes, that’s true material or not just material, you can say mechanical truth it’s some truth but some truth is not the sole truth so the mistake which science or especially those who have used science to propagate atheism, have done is what is some truth they have made it the sole truth so yes, if we consider the earth is going to provide a certain amount of resources and we have a certain number of living beings then how are we going to survive if the number of living beings increase but what we are not figuring in is that how much does the earth produce what determines what the earth produces so is it simply the mechanical laws of nature or is something more going on so in the contemporary context the higher explanations have been neglected or rejected and that is why the mainstream operational way of functioning is non-theistic people may not be atheistic but they are at least non-theistic ok God is not a factor so how do we, this is the second part it’s not useful to demonise people who say that that if population increases there will be a problem that is a valid conception if we have a particular frame of looking at things so how do we link these two contexts is there a way to do that, that’s the last part I’ll conclude with that so the contemporary context where the laws of nature are considered to be supreme and we just tap into the laws of nature and the traditional scriptural context where God is understood to be the supreme so if we want to link or harmonise the two contexts there are broadly wherever we are first is appreciate now we need to appreciate that there is something higher beyond us that controls us and that is not difficult to appreciate at all some people may say it’s the government controlling me it’s the deep state controlling me it is some some dark people some literati or whatever, people have different ideas of that something, somewhere, someone is controlling and manipulating everyone like puppets, people have that idea people may have different theories some theories are labelled as conspiracy theories but we appreciate that there is some controllership now can there be a hierarchy of controllership there is a controllership and is there a supreme controller Ishwara Paramakrishna so if we appreciate that there is some controller might there be some higher controller about that if somebody is saying that say, you know the government is evil and the government is controlling the world this particular political party is evil this particular group of people are terrible ok, they may be so we are acknowledging that there is some controllership, so is there some controllership about it so if we move upward the vision, sometimes especially in today’s world we can become so conscious of specific forces that we deem evil that we can forget God people from this particular religion are evil people from this particular region are terrible people from this are terrible so appreciate that there is some highest controller there are levels of controllership but there is a highest controller and now it’s a matter of choice for us is that highest controller also evil is that highest controller indifferent or good for us so that’s where only at the intellectual level we can’t really realise, the next is connect so if we are focused in the, I will make two quick points and conclude this session one of the fundamental problems in the western philosophical tradition was that right from the birth of science basically theorising and practising became separated religion was largely associated with Christianity and Christianity itself became for various reasons largely a matter of believing rather than a matter of practising to realise the beliefs in the mainstream Christian practises nowadays there is very little of what can be called as sadhana, yes you go to a church and you offer prayers, give some donations but ok, I acknowledge that God is there but there are no practises designed for raising human consciousness so it’s like say I am existing over here and say this is the material domain in which I exist so now here if I look I can both see that there is some arrangement there is some lack of arrangement so I can look at what is the arrangement and appreciate it but I can always see oh this thing went wrong in my life, maybe God doesn’t exist so we need to have some tangible practises by which we appreciate that there is some higher controller but what is the nature of that controller we cannot know that unless we have some practises to connect with that higher reality and in the western tradition there are many philosophers and many of them are very intelligent but they had no sadhana no tangible practise to actually realise what they were talking about so there has to be some kind of spiritual practise to connect with the reality so the Gita sometimes offers us another world view there are so many world views there, Gita also offers another world view well that is true that is at the level of philosophy but the Gita also gives us practise, it gives us yoga practise, it gives us bhakti yoga and that means it offers us another world to view not just another world view another way of looking at this world but rather the Gita connects us with a higher reality, there is another world to view and when we connect with that higher reality, that is the time we start understanding that this reality is not only maintaining me in this world but is actually my ultimate goon bhavnam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyate vasudevah sarvam iti samatma sudurlabha so we connect and then ultimately that reality becomes our target that I don’t just want to connect so that that reality will provide me things in this world, rather I want to connect with that reality because that reality is the ultimate goal of my life so if we are going to look only at the material level, even as devotees if we are going to primarily focus on material consciousness then the evidence will always be ambivalent now one devotee may be terribly sick and they get cancer and they get miraculously cured Krishna is so merciful another devotee gets cancer and they try so much and nothing happens and they die so was Krishna not merciful at that time? recently when there was an assassination attempt on Trump, the Christian pastors, several of them said oh this was an act of God Jesus saved him there was some Indian devotee later said oh once in a long, once in a lifetime ago he had served Jagannath and that’s why Jagannath protected him well you can find evidence for God’s action in this world but others can always find evidence for God’s non-action in this world so ok, both people you can ask ok so God protected this president but in that crossfire some innocent person was shot, why didn’t God protect that person? is God partial to this person and not to that person? so now can we see God’s role in this world? yes we can but my point is there are always sceptics who can say ok God acted here, why didn’t God act here? in the scriptures Hanuman was victoriously successful Jatayu was not Jatayu was killed, brutally killed so if we are only looking at the material level then the evidence for Krishna’s intervention and protection will be ambivalent, it won’t be conclusive it’s only when we connect with Krishna and we make Krishna as our target then we understand that Krishna provides for us Krishna uplifts us, Krishna cares for us even when the evidence of his caring for us at the material level is absent so the way to actually we will not be able to challenge a theism and defeat it at the material level of argumentation of course we can challenge it and counter it and point out counter evidence that based on the verdict of the world we can establish a theism is also a reasonable and defensible belief system but that it is the preferable it is the beneficial way of looking at the world that will come only through practise that is so when we connect with the Lord so appreciate connect and target when we act that is when we start realising that actually Krishna is the maintainer so in today’s world if we tell people this many times sometimes if we are not aware of the context so some war happens and I have seen devotees on Quora and social media saying that oh you know because animals are being killed and babies are being aborted that’s why all these wars are happening now devotees who make such statement get brutally trolled now is there truth to that? of course there is truth to that but for people who are not able to see that world view all that they see is they are seeing things from a particular framework this country attacked over here that’s the cause how do we resolve this? now we are talking from another world view a bigger framework and for those who have not bought into that framework who have not even understood that framework our statements seem not only unreasonable but they simply seem cruelly opportunistic that means you are profiting from people’s pain to stuff your ideology down our throat that’s what happens and when we do it we think it’s reasonable but in Nepal when big earthquake had happened there was an American pastor who said this earthquake occurred Nepal or North India he said because all these people over there are idol worshippers and Jesus taught them so that they would all give up idol worship and they will become believers in the one true God and actually to some extent it happened because Christians went and gave a lot of humanitarian support on the condition that you become Christians so after the natural calamity there was a huge conversion of people to Christianity and what he saw? he saw that this was an act of God to inspire people to come towards God now when somebody from some other religion does that we feel it’s an outrageous claim but that’s how people will see it when we make that claim so yes is there a validity to the karma world view to the bhakti world view? of course it is there but that world view needs to be communicated appropriately without that we will not only alienate but even antagonise people and if we say that anybody who doesn’t accept this abortion and animal slaughter that is causing all this that person is a demon well not necessarily some of them could be demoniac but many of them are just ignorant they don’t know this world view and they are trying to make sense of life based on the world view that they are operating so it has to be very carefully done connecting people who are operating within a particular world view to the spiritual world view I will summarise what I discussed today we talked about broadly appreciating god’s role in our lives so I talked about in three broad terms first was the scriptural context what is being said over here is that the universe we depend on some unknown and that unknown is favourable to us now the unknown could be neutral the unknown could also be unfavourable but the vedic understanding was it is favourable and we harmonise with that unknown so we harmonise with that higher reality through giving offerings, through worship through sacrifice so the modern context or the contemporary context is that we only look at the mechanical explanation we don’t look at the personal explanation so because of that the idea is we just manipulate material nature manipulation through technology and everything will be provided for that is what leads to provision so how do we connect the two? by three things first we appreciate there is some controller maybe there is a hierarchy of controllers and maybe the highest controller is a benevolent controller we connect with that higher controller through tangible practises that raise our vision from the material to the spiritual and eventually that spiritual reality becomes our target, it’s only when that happens that we can see the benevolence of God and that’s how we can see how the lord is connected with us appreciate is the first step there are two world views where the contemporary world view and the scriptural world view can intersect and how we can communicate scriptural message to people that has to be done very intelligently, how not to do it I explain through the example of violence and wars in this world thank you very much Hare Krishna Krantraj Srimad Bhagavatam ki Srila Prabhupada ki Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Jai Jai Gaur Prema Anandi