How science and spirituality can be harmonized

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So there can be three possibilities. So scriptural wisdom, it can agree with science, it can translate science, and it can contradict science.
If you visualise a large circle, there is something in scripture. For example, there is Vedic mathematics. You know, Vedic mathematics uses the same answers which modern mathematics uses.
But there are techniques that are simpler and faster. Why should I write the same answers? So there are other facts also which are there in scripture. For example, what is called Pythagoras theorem.
It was found long before Pythagoras. In the Anshut Pahastra, in the Valdhani Samhita. And it’s like knowledge given by mainstream historians.
Abraham Sandberg wrote a book called The History of Mathematics. And there he says several centuries before Pythagoras, we find that same sutra given in Valdhani Samhita. So within scripture, there is knowledge which agrees with science.
Then there is knowledge which contradicts science. We’ll go to third one. Contradicts means, I’ll discuss about that.
And the third is that which transcends science. That is just beyond the realm of science. So now, we will discuss one by one, these things.
And I focus with, as I said, this is a whole presentation, which I cannot go into, because I’ve talked about so many different things right now. So when science and scripture contradict each other, how do we deal with that? There are three possibilities. One possibility is that science is incorrect.
Second possibility is that science is incomplete. And third possibility is that science and scripture operate at different scales of observation. So now, prior to this only, I have discussed, is there a realm in which there is something that transcends science? So yes.
The quest for meaning, the quest for understanding the purpose of life. Science, that is, purpose of life. Science doesn’t give answers to that.
So there is an area of human knowledge that is beyond science. And for that, we can turn towards scripture. But when we are studying scripture, the aspects of scripture which seem to contradict science, they may disturb our thinking.
This doesn’t make sense to me. So how can I avoid this? So for that, our primary focus in studying scripture, we don’t study scripture to get scientific knowledge. For that, we have science.
We study scripture to get transcendental knowledge. You know about what is the purpose of life? How am I to achieve that? How can I become a better human being? How can I control my lust and greed? How can I become purified? So for all those things, we turn to a scripture. So among these three sectors, which is our primary focus when we study science and scripture? Transcendental knowledge.
So most of you are from IITs and IITs. You are going to be in institutes to learn material knowledge. That’s fine.
But to learn transcendental knowledge, we need a source, that is scripture. So our primary focus is this. But then what we do is, we need to practise to experience these moments.
I need to chant Hare Krishna regularly. I need to regulate my life. Then I can experience the higher happiness that is provided by devotion and bhakti yoga.
But to get the intellectual foundation to apply myself for practising bhakti yoga, I need to clear some doubts. So for that, we discuss how to deal with this area where science and scripture seem to contradict each other. So here, it’s a simple point over here.
See, if you look at the scientific domain and spiritual domain. So we know that there is gross matter, there is subtle matter, and there is spirit. Now gross matter is primarily for science studies.
Subtle matter in the mind is something science finds very difficult to study. So psychology was originally defined as the study of the mind. But then some psychologist came and objected.
He said, we don’t know what is the mind. So how can you have a whole branch of knowledge based on something that has no local standard. Therefore, instead of expanding knowledge to include mind, they decided to reduce psychology to remove mind.
So psychology was defined as the study of the mind. But because the mind was not considered scientific, so now what should have been done? Science should have expanded to include the mind. But what they did is, they reduced psychology.
They redefined psychology as study of behaviour. Instead of study of the mind, they made it study of behaviour. That is, again, it comes to the functional aspect rather than ontological aspect.
So anyway, so subtle matter is something which is beyond gross material science. And then there is spiritual. So scripture gives us knowledge about all things.
Science focusses primarily on gross reality. Now scientific knowledge is expanding. Phenomenally, it has been expanding in the last 200 years.
But it is in one dimension. If you see, what was beyond knowledge is still staying beyond knowledge. The expansion with one dimension is only like this.
That means we are getting more and more knowledge about gross matter. But we are not getting knowledge about subtle matter. We are not getting knowledge about spirit.
So in that sense, scientific knowledge is expanding in one dimension only. And even while it is expanding in one dimension, it is porous. Porous means there are assumptions and axioms.
As I discussed about the problems with quantum physics, its ontological implications. It doesn’t make sense. There are problems like that.
And then it leads to incomplete understanding. So especially, it is in part of the sense that it is silent about existence, purpose, and value. Existence means, okay, why do I exist? Why does anything exist at all? So they don’t know what is the purpose.
We don’t know the purpose of life from science. So I’ll just give a quick example to explain about this value. So if there is a wealthy grandmother and she has given her whole property in her will to her grandson.
And the grandmother is old. And now science can tell the grandson, you know, if I put arsenic in my grandmother’s breakfast, how much arsenic I need to put and how much time. The science can tell how to do that.
But science doesn’t tell us whether doing that is a welcome. Now, I’m not saying that scientists will do it. But if scientists don’t do it, it is not because science tells them it is wrong.
Science, by its very definition, is amoral. It’s not immoral. It is amoral.
Amoral means it just doesn’t have a moral dimension. It just explains how things interact. And even mathematical formulations for describing how things interact.
That’s why Albert Einstein said, you know, we can talk about the moral foundations of science, but we can’t talk about the scientific foundation of morality. Because morality is beyond science. Morality lies in science.
But science doesn’t tell us anything about morality. So what is right? What is wrong? We need to get that knowledge from somewhere else. And that knowledge we get from scripture.
That is faith and enquiry. That is how they can coexist, complement and reinforce. Now, let’s go back to, so all this I’m discussing to emphasise the point that there is knowledge which transcends science.
And there is a possibility that when something, when science and scripture seem to be contradictory, there is a possibility that science could also be deficient in some ways. So now let’s look at the specific possibilities. When there is contradiction between science and scripture, one is science is wrong.
Second is science is incomplete. And third is science and beta are observed from different scales. So science is wrong means that what it is called a theory is all messed up.
Now when you talk about evolution, the whole idea of theory of evolution is based on the principle of bait and switch. Bait and switch means you show one thing and you do another thing. See, as for evolution, as far as changes over time is concerned, that is a universally observed fact of nature.
There’s no doubt about it. You know, even the Bhagavad Gita describes that Krishna, out of the 64 arts that he learned, one of the arts he learned was, what do you call it, plant breeding. You just, not gardening exactly, you take one branch, grafting.
Yeah, you know, grafting. So one of the things that he learned was that, you know, how to modify plants, create cross breeding and create a new variety of flowers and things like that. But that is something that naturally happens.
So change, any change over time is something which is a fact of nature. Now this is micro evolution. Micro evolution is variation within species.
That, you know, sometimes there’s apples of this size and apples of this size and apples of this size, you know, and this changes naturally. But to propose that over time an apple will change into a mango. Just because this apple can go to this size or can go to this size, from there to propose that apple will change into a mango, is something which is again a non-scientific extrapolation of scientific data.
So if you use the word evolution to refer to changes within species over time, that is an observed fact of nature. But when we talk about change from one species to another, that is something entirely different. And for that, the proof is actually pathetically inadequate.
So if the theory of evolution were to just be examined on its scientific merit, then it would have died long ago. But for the atheists, that theory is like their lifeblood in their battle against religion. And that’s why, although the theory of evolution is in the ICU about to die, but all the atheists are using all their intelligence to pump some artificial respiration into that theory and keep it alive.
So, actually speaking, the theory of evolution, as far as microevolution is concerned, variation within species, that’s perfectly fine. But variation across species, actually there is no evidence for it and there’s not even a theory of it. How it happens and when it has happened, there’s no demonstration, there’s no theory of it.
And even if it were there, now still the fundamental question remains, survival of the fittest does not explain arrival of the fittest. What does it mean? That even if somehow an apple changes to a mango, still that does not answer the question, when did the apple come from originally? Isn’t it? So the problem with the theory of evolution is that it cannot explain very big changes and it cannot explain the origins. So, in that sense, the theory’s claims are far, far beyond any empirical support.
So, if the theory of evolution is portrayed as an explanatory replacement for God, because evolution is there, therefore God is not there. And in that sense, it is grossly overstated. So, I will now go into this field over here, how Darwinian evolution is wrong.
Those of you who are interested, there are devotees and this Dr. Michael Krimo and Dr. Cheryl Thomson, Sadapatpura to the Karmapura group. They have written several books on this topic. They wrote a first book called Forbidden Archaeology.
A huge amount of evidence has been documented to prove how there is so much evidence which contradicts the theory of evolution. And then explanatory alternatives also to the theory of evolution in the second book called Human Evolution. But so this is sufficiently, science is wrong.
And this is not a game now. See, when we say science is wrong, that is not to disrespect or insult science. When science makes claims which are beyond its jurisdiction, to point that out is not insulting science.
To say that the President of America is not the king of the world, it’s not an insult to the President of America. If the President takes that as an insult, then that only proves his inflated ego. Isn’t it? So those who think that science has a monopoly on knowledge and that science cannot be wrong, you know, actually they are making an unscientific claim.
Because science uses natural research for natural phenomena. Science doesn’t use all knowledge about everything. So there is a difference here.
That the idea that science gives us knowledge of everything, it is not science. It is a different ideology called as scientism. So scientism is the ideology which claims that science is the only source of all knowledge.
And that knowledge is not scientific, is not knowledgeable. So now, I got to speak about the spiritual point of view. Even from the material point of view, you cannot actually have this idea as a matter.
Suppose, your mother offers you a birthday cake. Your mother suddenly goes home and offers you a delicious cake. And you know, you want to come.
Why did your mother make this cake? And suppose you have a friend and he is an advocate of scientism. So science can provide all knowledge, you tell him. And now you find out why your mother made this cake.
And then what happens is, you know, he can get a cognitive behavioural scientist, he can get a psychologist, he can get an artificial intelligence expert. And they can all put your mother under observation. And they look at her brain, look at her expression, look at her hand, look at her spine.
And they all come to their inferences. Why did your mother make the cake? And then she tells a final… And then none of them can come to the explanation why the mother gave. So this is… So why did the mother make the cake? Since there is no purpose.
Now, there is no reason. Now your mother will say, I worked hard. What do you mean there is no reason? You ask her.
You say, actually 20 years ago on this day, you are the worst student. So to commemorate that day, I wanted to make something sweet and succulent and juicy for you. That’s how I made this cake.
So now, can anyone by putting some robes on the brain find that reason? No, you can’t find it. You know, scientists can find out in a person when he is sleeping, whether the person is dreaming or not. And they can also make out whether those dreams are good or bad.
You know, there are certain reactions. But what the dream was, there is no proof that you can find out. If you want to know what the dream was, you have to wake the person up and ask, what are you dreaming about? So similarly, science cannot have an answer to all questions.
It is giving a simple… I got an example of a mother’s purpose in making a cake. It has nothing to do with spirituality. I mean, this example illustrates that even in the material field, even in our normal human relationships, there are areas of knowledge where science doesn’t provide answers.
Suppose the best neurosurgeon in the world, maybe Nobel laureate, he goes home and his wife is upset with him. And then he wants to know why he is upset. He says, darling, just come to my lab.
I will do a brain scan to find out why you are upset. He says, you have to do a brain scan to see where your brain has gone. To think that by a brain scan, you will find out that you will find out why I am upset.
You can’t do that. So the point is that, yes, science can be wrong because science isn’t an absolute knowledge. Secondly, science is incomplete.
So even science is… There is a contradiction in science’s picture. Second possibility, science is incomplete. Incomplete means it uses a partial view of reality.
So what does the partial view of reality mean? How many of you know the game called billiards? You know, it’s basically… In billiards, there is a table and there are balls on the table. And you hit the balls with long sticks. So now, if you want to look at the game of billiards from the point of view of mechanics, you can find out, okay, this stick was moved with this velocity at this angle and it collided with the ball at this force.
And that’s how that ball hit this ball and that ball hit that ball. And that’s how it ran into the hole. And that’s how the game ended.
Now, in one sense, the explanation of the movement of the balls on the billiards table can all be explained in terms of mechanics. But is that all that there is to the game? Is that all that there is to the game? No, there’s a player. There’s a player who plays expertly.
And that billiards table’s movement of balls has a mechanical explanation, does not contradict or deny the expertise of the player. The player has expertise and the player expertly hits the ball. And that’s how the ball hits and the ball goes into the hole.
So these two explanations that the ball went into the hole because of the laws of mechanics or the ball went into the hole because the player hit expertly, these two are not contradictory explanations. They are complementary explanations. They are complementary explanations.
It’s not this or that. It is this and to claim only this is wrong. Now, sometimes scientists say that laws of mechanics explain everything.
But then laws describe simply the modes or the methods by which matter interacts. Suppose the idea of a cricket match. Last ball, it’s like a bouncer in the batsman swings and hits a hook and somehow the ball takes a top edge and just goes into the filter over there.
The filter’s jumping and just barely it just touches over his finger and goes up. The sixth sensei in India wins the match. Now, you can actually, if you see action replays of cricket matches, they also describe when the ball came at this angle and it was hit with this force.
Now, from mechanics, we can all explain everything. In the sense that how the ball was hit and what force it was hit, what angle it took the top edge, all that can be explained. But the laws describe the method, the pattern by which objects interact with each other.
But those objects don’t initiate their motion themselves. After the motion is initiated, then the law will explain how things happen. Isn’t it? It’s a batsman who swung the bat and after the bat and the ball came in contact, then after that, actually the ball went across the boundary.
So the laws of motion can explain after the bat and ball come in contact with each other, why did the ball go over the boundary and why did the ball not go into the hand of the player? Isn’t it? But the laws of motion themselves could explain everything. Then, you know, if the laws of motion could explain that, okay, why this batsman hits a sixer, then the laws of motion are same for everyone. Every neighbourhood batsman who becomes a hitter becomes a hitter.
Isn’t it? The laws of mathematics can explain that if I had 200 rupees in my pocket and I would get 1000 rupees from my bank, now I will have 1200 rupees. But the laws of mathematics neither created the 200 rupees nor created 1000 rupees. If the laws of mathematics have created things, started creating things, then all offers would become the limits.
You see, laws don’t create things. Laws, after things are existing, after things are put into motion or things are put into interaction, then the pattern of interaction between pre-existing and pre-activated things is described by the laws of nature. Is this clear? The billiards board has to exist, the balls have to exist, the stick has to exist, and then once pre-existing things are pre-activated, the pattern of interaction between them is explained by laws.
So, laws don’t explain everything. Laws don’t explain why motion happens in terms of origin and why the things which are in motion exist also, it doesn’t explain. So, the wingpan theory, even if it were true, for argument’s sake, if we assume it is true, still all that it can explain is how things, just one particular moment of the explosion.
But before that, how did something exist? There is one scientist, he tried to start about writing a book. Claim of his book is, how everything came from nothing. I’ll explain that.
But then he used 12 explanations. And all the explanations are what? He has to redefine nothing so that it is something. So, he has to redefine nothing so that it is something.
And if nothing is what? If nothing is a quantum mechanical vacuum of high order abstract mathematics which requires 215 pages to describe. That nothing is surely something. So, the wingpan theory in terms of purely the idea that, okay, the universe is a contracted ball and exploded, that is not necessarily contracted in the scripture.
Scripture explains that actually the universe emerged from bodily pores of man. So, they are contracted and they expand. So, in those terms, that’s fine.
But they don’t explain everything. They don’t explain where things originated from. They don’t explain fully.
It was just an exclusion. How did things come out to be in an orderly manner? The way we observe them in the universe. So, science gives us an incomplete view.
This point is clear. If science will give only the view of the billiards table. But the whole reality that the billiards table is there, which follows the laws of mechanics.
But beyond that, there are players who are experts who have claimed everything. And lastly, this is what is most important, because there are questions that are in this. That, when is the contradiction between science and scripture? Science and Vedas can observe from different scales.
From different scales of observation. So, I’ll just quickly look at this. These are points I talked about.
Yeah. Suppose, how science and scripture can see from two different perspectives. Now, if I take chalk and I take coke, and I grind both of them in powder.
I have a black powder, white powder. When I mix both of them together, I get grey powder. Now, if I observe the grey powder under a microscope, what do I see? Actually, the grey powder disappears.
And what I see is white granules and fragments. Now, what does it really mean? Is it really a grey powder? Or is it really black granules and white granules? What is it? Here, what we call as reality will depend on our scale of observation. So, similarly, which is real? Actually, the point is not reality.
The point is a utility. Depending on what I want to do, I’ll take that particular scale of observation and observe accordingly. So, here, Navedic cosmology, it has two main sources.
There are the Puranas and the Jyotish Shastras. The Puranas give us cosmological descriptions from a divine perspective. Divine perspective means scriptural perspective.
And Jyotish Shastras gives description from a human perspective. That means, they talk about Vidhata Jyotish Shastra, Surya Siddhanta Jyotish Shastra. Now, these are in many ways reconcilable science.
So, for example, Navedic gives us the distance between the Earth. They use the diameter of the Earth. Now, you see the diameter of the Earth is 7840 miles.
Compared to the modern age, it is 7961 miles. Now, that is a minor difference which is understandable for those who live in the state of the earth. Orbits are not exactly spherical.
They are slightly different. But they are very minor differences. They are markedly accurate distances.
Similarly, there are different distances between the Earth and various sets of celestial objects in the Earth. And these do work out to be precisely accurate. Very significantly accurate.
How did these scriptures, if they were just some imaginations of some sages or some people in the past, how did they come up with precise figures? So, because they have a divine source. That’s how they can take this knowledge. Now, apart from this, there is also a Puranic perspective which gives scripture from a higher perspective.
Just like observing the particles as grey eye, as grey hand, as Viking figure and all that stuff. Or a grey ball. So, when the Puranas describe the scripture, they describe it from a higher perspective.
And because of that, that perspective is not accessible to us. That perspective is not comprehensible to us. So, I will give you an example to illustrate what I mean by this.
So, for example, now India is proud that we have taken, we have Mangalayam, we have taken our satellite to Mars. Prior to that, when Prabhupada was there, Prabhupada said that at that time, man had landed on the moon for the first time. So, Prabhupada at that time said, man did not go to the moon.
Now, this created a lot of confusion among the humans. Now, if we can see the television that they are going to the moon, how can Prabhupada say that he did not go to the moon? Now, Prabhupada, Prabhupada gave a very, what people see as a particular logic. He said that the moon is a higher planet and there are trespassers on the higher planet.
So, now what does it mean? For us, the moon is just okay, there is some celestial object existing over there. And he just goes there. So, what does it mean? So, here we have to understand that, actually, now did humans go to the moon or not? There are different possibilities.
Humans went to a 3D projection of Chandra Loka, it was a high-tech diversion, but if he was, he might not have gone at all. So, what does it mean? I will explain all these things. See, okay, a 2D projection of a 3D object contains only a few of its actual features.
So, now, we humans operate in three dimensions, and no matter how fast our spacecrafts, we cannot go beyond these three dimensions, wherever we go. So, therefore, even if scientists went, now the scientists just operate Chandra Loka, Now, it is described in the Mahabharata, say when Arjuna was going to the north, to conquer the northern territory, so that he could do Rajshri Yajna for Yudhishthira. So, at that time, he came to the Himalayas, and when he was climbing up, up at the Himalayas, at that time, he came to the area of the celestial, and they said that you cannot go beyond this, because humans are not allowed to access beyond this.
So, he said that, actually, I have come for performing Rajshri Yajna for Yudhishthira, so, for my brother Yudhishthira, so, please agree to all the tributes, otherwise, I will have to fight with you, and I will have to defeat you. He said that you cannot fight with us, because even if you enter here, you will not see anything of it. Humans cannot see anything that is in celestial, unless they are given special permission.
And further they said, we have nothing against Yudhishthira, we know that you are very pious, and that you are, you are all arranged by your lord, your presence in the earth is arranged by your lord, so, we will come and offer you tributes. But the simple point is, that when scriptures talk about such things, they themselves contain some caveats, caveats means voids, that some things are not visible to us. So, now, when we see Chandragupta, might be we hear this, this picture also many times, like I was asked this question, that if Ganga comes from the heavens, that’s what we hear in tradition, but Ganga has also come from Gangotri, so, then how is Ganga coming from Gangotri, then how is Ganga itself coming from Yudhishthira, possibly coming from the heavens, now we have to understand, that we should not have, now, why we used to say some movies, some movies may be made by devotees also, but the point is, you cannot depict higher domains, so, they may just depict the Ganga falling from the heavens to the earth, but the point is, the heavenly realm is not made of gross matter like our realm, so, when the heavenly realm is not made of gross matter, so, even the Ganga in heaven will not be made of gross matter, so, when the Ganga that is there in heaven, that will be of a different nature, so, water itself there is of a different nature, there are things existing, but when you talk about, say, when scriptures talk about things, we normally talk about a very sophisticated level of reality, so, what it essentially means is, that that same Ganga which is there in heaven, which is there in the earth, but it does not literally mean that the same water from there is flowing over here, it just means that there is a connection between the river over there and the connection over here, and the exact nature of the connection is not open for human comprehension, because the nature of human reality or heavenly reality itself is not open for human comprehension, in the scriptures, many incidents are there where the devatas come, and unless the devatas grant visibility to the manavas, the manavas will be there, but the manavas cannot see them, that means, the whole Vedic scriptures are based on a worldview, which includes the existence of subtle realms, which are not comprehensible or perceivable for us with our finite powers of observation, so, Chandra Loka is a part of a higher planetary system, that we will access a bit less, but that doesn’t mean that none of that is accessible to us, so, just like, I will give you an example of a map, there is say Pune and Mumbai, so, on the map there is Pune, there is Mumbai, if I just move my finger from Pune to Mumbai, that is not equal to Mumbai, the map of Pune and Mumbai has a correlation with the reality of Pune and Mumbai, but the map is basically a 2D representation of a multi-dimensional reality, which is actually the city, similarly, Chandra Loka is a higher dimensional reality, and what we call as moon or what we call as mars, these are projections scaled down to our level of perception of those higher realities, so, even if we go to the moon, even if we go to the mars, we will not be able to perceive there anything, because we have not expanded our capacities of perception, we are still limited to 3D space, and we are still limited to our finite scales of perception, that is why, the point that Vinay is giving is that scriptures are talking from a different scale of perception, and because they talk from a different scale of perception, so, we can’t understand what actually happened, so, now, beyond that, what exactly is happening, so, even if scientists succeed in going to certain planets, or that they are succeeding in doing this, they are going to a particular, they are staying in 3D space, and they are exploring that space, 3D space in a further way, which is okay, therefore, that is not intrinsically counter-scriptural, because the point is, it is a contradicting scriptural principle, because scripture talks about levels of reality, I will not go into too much, because I can see that too much analysis of this, I just conclude one quick example, there are these big computers, or even an ordinary computer, you can have multiple users, you can have an admin user, and you can have a general user, now, a general user has a certain level of access to the computer, and now there are other things in the computer, they may be invisible, or they may be inaccessible, invisible means you can’t see only those folders or those files, or inaccessible means, you can see those folders, but if you try to open them, it says you won’t have the permission to open this, so, basically, it is only one device, it is the same computer, but if there is a very basic level of user, that user may find, okay, there are only 500 files over here, the intermediary level of user, that person will be granted more access, okay, there are not 500, there are 5,000 files over here, and the admin user has complete access, there are not 5,000, there are 50,000 files over here, now, who is right? Actually, from their finite scale of perception, their specific scale of perception, they are all right, in which of them was the search engine, my computer search engine, 500 files, no, 5,000 files, 5,000 files, the point is, they are all having different levels of access, so, we humans have a certain level of access to humans, and based on that level of access, we can perceive certain things, so, here, when science explores and finds some things, you remember that diagram, the expansion of science is in one dimension, so, by that one dimension, science can expand it more, it can learn certain things, but it cannot expand beyond that, it is not going beyond gross material things, whereas scripture talks about subtle material reality, it talks about spiritual realities also, so, ultimately, the substance of our character, the happiness of our heart, you know, all these are not gross material things, they are subtle and spiritual, and they matter to us, and they are what the scripture promulgates, ultimately, so, if I want to be happy, science cannot even quantify happiness, how can I quantify happiness, if I laugh, you know, science can measure a decibel level sound of how much I am laughing, but that decibel level is not an indication of the level of my happiness, these emotions, they cannot be quantified, they cannot be quantified, they cannot be quantified, they are higher realities, higher realities that are accessed through scripture, not just accessed, they are explained, and they are elevated, so, our spiritual happiness, which is foundational to us, that can be fulfilled by scripture, now, scripture tells us that we are called souls, and the soul links with the supreme soul, who is a deliverer of all happiness, we find the supreme happiness in our lives, so, thank you very much, any questions about this?