How We Devalue Scripture How We Devalue Science – Chaitanya Charan on Wisdom of the Sages podcast

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Thank you. Thank you. This is Wisdom of the Sages, a daily yoga podcast with your host Raghunath and co-host and senior educator at the Bhakti Centre in New York City.
Kustubhadas, welcome to the show. Welcome to Sleeping Sunday. Welcome to Interview Day.
But before we get into Interview Day and interview our honoured guests, I want to say welcome to everybody. I had a great day yesterday at Yoga Factory at Zeb’s studio. Zeb, we went to the last minute thing at Zeb’s studio because I had to come to Pittsburgh and Andrea and Zeb set up workshops for me.
Today, I’m at Andrea’s Sangha Centre in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Zeb packed the place. And we had Hari Kata.
We did a yoga class. And then you got to hang out with Zeb. Zeb’s a special soul.
He is. He’s a special soul. Some previous life yogi, bhakta, like deep, thoughtful.
You did some kirtan? Did a little kirtan, a little chanting. Yeah, he’s inspired. He’s coming to Italy for the town.
By the way, we have one space left. There was one cancellation. We have one space left.
If you’re thinking of coming to Italy, if you’ve been sitting on the picket fence and like, I’m not sure if you’ve been walking on that slack line of which way to fall, fall towards Italy. We have one space. And this is a Krishna miracle that it’s opened up for you.
I think we need brother nature. Get brother nature in that spot. I want to find out more about this person.
Yeah. You want to hear something crazy? You want to hear a Krishna miracle? Okay. This is a total Krishna miracle.
So when we were all monks and shelter lived in the ashram in Philadelphia, there was one kid from Reading, Pennsylvania who used to come to the ashram all the time. His name was Todd. Todd grew.
Years later, we always sort of stayed loosely connected. I know Todd. You know Todd? Yes.
We stayed loosely connected for years, but very loosely. Then one day when me and my wife first got together, we came to, this was like 20 years later. I came to India via Thailand, and I ran into Todd in Thailand.
Okay. That was sort of random, running into a person in a restaurant in Thailand. That was weird.
Then check this out. Then he came to India with me years later. Then I haven’t seen him again.
Then over dinner yesterday, Justin was talking about Kung Fu that he did when he was younger. Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. Check this out.
Justin is a Kung Fu recovering drag queen? My assistant, Justin, before drag queen time, he was studying monkey Kung Fu and yin yoga from the yin yoga master, Paul Greely. All right. Holly Zink.
Check this out. I said, oh, I think my friend Todd studied with him. I texted Todd, who lives in Sweden.
Todd sent me a picture of him and Justin from like 30 years ago. Is that a Christian miracle? It is. I accept that.
Mathematically, yeah. Impossible. Not impossible, but miraculous.
You know what? We’re going to have to ask the spiritual scientists, like, what are the chances? What are the chances of these Christian miracles? I bet the spiritual scientist, our guest today, he could probably do a mathematical equation. That’s my point. You know, statistically, mathematically, there’s got to be a certain point where we can call it miraculous.
Yeah. I mean, for example, when we were setting up, if you’re listening as one of the others out there today who are not on Zoom, you know, all the Zoom people pile in. You know, we get about 80 people on Zoom, 100 people on Zoom.
And then today, out of all the Zoom people, the two Sherry’s were right next to each other. Like, does that qualify for a miracle? Like, in the Catholic Church, that brings, you need two miracles to make somebody a saint in the Catholic Church. Do you know that? Halfway there, Sherry.
We’re halfway there. The two Sherry’s are halfway there. I don’t know.
We got to ask the spiritual scientists. What makes something a miracle? What makes something a miracle? What are the odds that it becomes a miracle? Anyway, it’s all quite fascinating. He has an answer for us, or maybe he doesn’t.
He’s holding, he’s holding back. He’s filled with answers. I’m going to ask him questions about the Naga planets.
No, we’re not supposed to go. Like, we don’t go anywhere in this interview, Ragnar. You don’t have to go to the Naga planets.
That’s important? I’ve been waiting for the spiritual scientists just to ask about the Naga planets. I try to come up with a plan, a rational plan, where this interview can go. What is more rational? The planets of the snakes.
What is more rational than planets of snake people? I’m not making this stuff up. It’s in the Bhagavatam. We need a solid answer.
Okay. In that context, we can bring it up. That’ll work.
He’s holding back. He’s got answers in his head. I’m looking at him in Zoom right now.
By the way, I want you to know, Kostuba, there were so many others out there. Others, meaning people who are not listening on Zoom. They’re just listening.
I just met a whole handful of others. I call them the Pittsburgh others. Wow.
It’s like teams of others from Pittsburgh just doing their thing in Pittsburgh, not at 5 a.m. and then tuning in later. Binge listening. I’m going to give a shout out to the Pittsburgh others.
My parents live in Pittsburgh. I haven’t seen them since COVID started, but afterward, I’ll probably drop in Pittsburgh. Maybe I can meet some of these others.
Yeah, the Pittsburgh others. Speaking of meeting others and meeting Zoomers and all that, are we confirmed for next Sunday for Central Park? We are having a Central Park picnic next week. What do you think of that? Next Sunday? Central Park.
We’re going to have a picnic. We’re going to have kirtan. Everybody’s invited.
Everybody’s invited. There’s no fee. It’s just a hangout session with Wisdom of the Sages people.
We’re going to give you more details tomorrow. We haven’t figured it out yet. Okay, but mark it on your calendar.
Mark it on your calendar. Sunday, Wisdom of the Sages. We’re going to have some type of sporting event happening there.
It’s going to be either volleyball, softball, or a wrestling match. Tug of war? Wrestling match. An ultimate UFC is going to happen.
I stayed up to one o’clock last night to watch the UFC. All right, Robert. Let’s get on point here.
Okay, om namo bhagavate vas. We already did that. But why don’t we read the bio of Chaitanya Charan Prabhu? We’ve had Chaitanya Charan Prabhu on our show before.
He’s a monk, a mentor, and a spiritual author. He graduated from Government College of Engineering in Pune with a degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering. I consider Chaitanya Charan one of the great thinkers of our time.
Literally, I’m not exaggerating when I say that. On the most important subject of bhakti and yoga philosophy, he’s just one of the greatest thinkers out there. He scored 2,350 out of 2,400 in the graduate record examination, which gained him the top rank in Maharashtra.
What? You know how many people there are in Maharashtra? There’s like more than a hundred. There’s like millions. There’s like a hundred on every train car.
Yeah, I mean, that’s like insane. 112 million. 112 million.
Number one. All right, that’s pretty good. That’s a Krishna miracle in itself.
That’s a Krishna miracle. He subsequently served as a software engineer in a prominent multinational software corporation, but seeing the prevalent problems of stress, depression, addiction, and overall misdirection, all caused by lack of spirituality, he felt inspired to dedicate his life to the cause of sharing the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. So now he travels the world.
He gives talks on spiritual subjects in universities such as Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Cambridge, and companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google, as well as TEDx. Yeah, he’s the author of the world’s only Gita Daily feature, wherein he writes a daily 300-word inspirational reflection on a verse from the Bhagavad Gita. Till now, and this was probably written a while ago, so it’s probably a lot more than that.
Till now, he has written over 3,000 Gita meditations that are posted on www.gitadaily.com. What? Whenever I hear these bios, I’m like, what am I doing with my life? I gotta get my life together. I’m a mess. He does that every day.
Okay. He also answers questions by seekers on his site, www.thespiritualscientist.com, where he has over 3,500 audio answers and several hundred articles are available. His articles have been published in many Indian newspapers, including Indian Express, Economic Times, and Times of India in the Speaking Tree column.
That Speaking Tree column is like a really big thing over there, you know, it’s read by millions. I mean, Times of India is the biggest newspaper in the world. Is it? Yeah, I think so.
You gotta ask the spiritual scientist. He has the answers for everything. He’s a member of ISKCON’s leading intellectual body, the Shastric Advisory Council.
And he’s the associate editor of ISKCON’s global magazine, Back to Godhead. And he’s also the author of 22 books. He’s not wasting time.
He’s not wasting a moment. We get all distracted. He’s like plugged in.
I know, I’m talking about the UFC in front of him. I’m like, this is stupid. Chaitanya Chakraborty, welcome to Wisdom at Sea.
Welcome back to Wisdom at Sea. Welcome back. Thank you.
It’s a privilege and a delight to be here. And I often hear your podcast. And I’m amazed to see how two things, how creatively and appealingly you are able to present the wisdom of the Bhagavatam that I have been studying for years.
And how you are able to build a community virtually. So I’m very inspired by what you’re doing. And I’m glad to be, I’m grateful to have an opportunity to have some service today.
Wow, thank you. So Chaitanya Charan, you also teach Bhakti Shastri because I’m at Rachel’s house, Rachel and Jeff’s house. And she says she’s studying with you directly.
That’s one of the courses you’re offering? Yeah, it’s a self-paced learning course. I did the recording of the whole Bhakti Shastri. And then it’s available devotees can hear.
And then they can learn and they can ask questions. And I answer the questions. It’s self-paced.
So yes, it’s available. Incredible. I also have courses on the Gita for studying the Gita.
Gita Key Verses and Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita. So they are on my Gita Daily website, those courses. So you go to www.gitadaily.com. And people could take these courses.
I think there are several of him. Like they all look the same, but he’s doing like all these different things, right? How’s he doing all that? How’s he doing all that? He doesn’t waste time. That’s what it is.
I wish I could learn. He doesn’t waste any time. We’re quite, we’re always impressed Prabhu.
We’ve got lots of questions for you because there’s certain things I just can’t figure out about my life and about metaphysical questions. And I’m ready to like put them all on you, sir. Matter of fact, when people write us, sometimes it goes, I need a teacher.
I need a direction. I need some help. I go, yep, Chaitanya Charan.
Here’s just, I just push them over to you. You are go-to for transcendental information. So maybe I could start off with a question.
And it has to do with, you know, it’s just on my mind, as we are reading Srimad Bhagavatam daily as part of Wisdom of the Sages. And for instance, this past week, we were in a chapter. In the previous week, the previous week, we’re in a chapter where we read that the creator of the universe foreheaded Lord Brahma sitting on a lotus that grew out of the navel of Vishnu.
From his nostril came Lord Vishnu in another form, in the form of a wild boar who subsequently picked the earth up out of the water and then fought a huge demon and defeated him. And then the next chapter described the birth of that demon. And it described that the parents of the demon were it just, you know, it described Diti, who’s the mother of the demons, of, like I say, a dynasty of demons.
And she’s sexually agitated. She’s pulling her husband out of his brahminical meditation and demanding to be satisfied. He’s warning her, now’s not the right time.
Why isn’t it the right time? Well, because Lord Siva is travelling around with all the ghosts and it will be somehow offensive to him and it will bring inauspicious thing, you know, the results of it will be very inauspicious. But she can’t be, you know, she can’t be dissuaded. He gives in.
After they do the act, he takes a shower, does a little meditation, comes back and reports to her his realisations. This is what will be born, you know, as a result of this. And he says, you’ll have two sons that will be like these universal tyrants.
But you’ll have a grandson that will be a great devotee. And, you know, the reason why the tyrants are going to be born is because your mind is so polluted and because you’re not following this sacred tradition properly. And the reason why you’ll have a birth of a great devotee is because you actually have some devotion to Lord Siva and you also have some devotion to me and so on.
So why I bring this all up is I say hearing all this, like, I think all of us here, we feel like we’re getting something out of the Bhagavatam. We’re getting something that’s valuable, even potentially life-changing. But at the same time, I think some of these narrations, they can challenge us.
And they can challenge us on two levels. They can challenge us like on just the rational level. Like, come on, you know, he’s born from a lotus.
He’s got four heads. You know, Lord Vishnu just comes out of his nose, you know, I’m supposed to accept that. Is it just a story? Am I meant to get a lesson from it? But I can set the story aside.
Are you telling me that it’s actually possible that this could happen in other worlds? So on a rational level, it’s challenging. And also on an ethical level, I just think, you know, in one sense, when you hear that story, it’s kind of like, okay, the husband is like the smart and deeply spiritual, self-controlled guy. And the wife is less intelligent and less yogic and less controlled and out of control.
And he’s got to come in and lecture her about what’s going to happen, mansplaining everything to her and, you know. He mansplained it to you. Yes.
So, you know, it is challenging on many levels. And I was just, you know, we always appreciate your insights. We know you think deeply about these things.
So we’re just wondering, you know, can you shed some light on this or just share your thoughts on it? Yes, there’s a lot you’ve gotten over here. I threw a lot on the table there for you. So let me start with the point that these are questions that any thoughtful person will have.
And Bhaktivinod Thakur is a prominent Acharya in our tradition. He’s the spiritual master of the spiritual master of Srila Prabhupada. So he wrote an essay on the Bhagavata.
And he… An essay on the Srimad Bhagavatam. In the Srimad Bhagavatam. And there, in fact, he’s addressing the intellectual elite of Bengal.
He was in the second half of the 19th century. He lived. And he anticipates three problems in understanding the Bhagavatam.
And those problems are, he says, problems from a rational perspective, problems from an ethical perspective, and problems from a metaphysical perspective. Okay. And he gives a framework for how to address them.
So let’s look at… Briefly explain the framework. So he says that, depending on individual consciousness, a person may be at three levels. He says, he uses Sanskrit words, kanishta, madhyama, uttama.
Okay. First, you could say the preliminary level, intermediate level, and the ultimate level, you can say. And he… That’s in terms of one’s spiritual development? Yeah, I’ll explain what he means by that.
How he explains those words. Okay. So he says that the first level or the preliminary level is where a person focusses on the ritual, the literal, the external.
So, and most people throughout human history, even those who have turned toward any kind of path, they are external. It’s not just in religion. Whenever there are two groups of people, you know, if say two groups of people are fighting with each other, then if somebody is seen as, say, carrying the flag of a particular country, that means you must be my enemy.
That person may actually love the other country. That person may be empathic. So most people look at externals.
So this is just superficial. Most people are going to be relatively superficial. Yeah, so this is just human tendency, and this applies in the religious domain also.
And so those people, they consider the essence of, when they study scripture, when they practise, they consider rituals to be the essence. When they study scripture, they consider the literal meaning to be the essential meaning. And he calls such people as Bhaarvahi.
Bhaarvahi means burden carrying. I’m sorry, carrying? Burden, burden. They’re carrying a burden.
Burden carrier. It’s a burden carrier. So that they somehow or the other have to justify that this is exactly what it is, and this is what it means.
They become apologists in a sense? Well, I mean, even the next level also can be apologists. But here it is more like they are certain that this is the truth, and they don’t care for any objections or opposition to the truth. They’re a version of the truth.
You know, we have literalists in every tradition. I think I was in Texas, and I saw one person on their car. They had written that God said it.
I accept it. The Bible says it. I accept it.
That settles it. Well, that’s Texas for you. Welcome to Texas.
Why can’t I imagine you in Texas? I just can’t imagine. So this is literalist. Now, we have to consider.
Now, I’m not blaming Bible or Christianity over here. There are also sophisticated theologians in Christianity. But this is the attitude that many people have.
And he doesn’t, Bhaktivedanta Thakur doesn’t criticise or demean such people. He says they are at a particular level, and that is the way they can understand and approach. But then he says that is not the only way to approach.
The second level, he says, is the intermediate level. We could put it at the first is the ritual level. Second is more rational or intellectual level.
And such people, he encourages them to be not burden carriers, but essence seekers. Essence seekers. That’s a great hashtag, Mara.
Essence seeker. That’s a great t-shirt. Essence seeker.
Thank you for that. So as an essence seeker, so their focus is on, so he encourages that, what is the purpose of these books that have been written? So, for example, if you consider the Srimad Bhagavatam, the broad context is there is a king who has been cursed to die. Parikshit is about to die, Maharaj.
He’s sitting and hearing these stories. Now, what is the purpose for hearing these stories? His purpose is to spiritualise his consciousness. He’s not there for amusement.
He’s not there for just killing time till death comes upon him. So he is seeking spiritual meaning through the stories. So he is seeking to elevate his consciousness.
And that is the purpose which unifies, which has unified seekers throughout history in approaching the Bhagavatam. So when we study the Bhagavatam, we have to see, how can this story help me to raise my consciousness? So that approach, that spiritualising the consciousness, now does that mean that we reject everything that doesn’t conform to our conceptions? No, that’s not the point. And I’ll address specific objections, rational, ethical, soon based on what Dr. Vinod Thakur says.
But he says the purpose has to be clear. And then the third, I’ll come back to the second level later. This is called the intellectual, the rational level.
And then the third level is the transcendental or he says the rasic level. Transcendental level are those who are relishing rasa. Rasa is the taste of love for Krishna.
So they are absorbed in love for Krishna. They’re experiencing an ocean of divine emotions. And in one sense, they have attained the highest fulfilment that the soul is capable of experiencing.
So he doesn’t say that those who either literally accept everything that the Bhagavatam says or they reject anything that doesn’t conform to what their conceptions are, that they are the best. He says those who are experiencing love for Krishna, they are the highest. So the purpose in this, we say the way to progress in this trajectory in this three level progression is to get to learn to love Krishna and to become absorbed in love for Krishna.
So now while we are progressing towards that, so at the intermediate level when we are, we may find certain things which may not make, as you said, logical sense. So there’s two issues, logical and ethical. So let’s talk about the logical point now.
So now what Bhaktivinoda Thakur states, and I will paraphrase and elaborate on what he says that, that material information in scripture, there is some material information and there is some spiritual information. So the point is that material information is relative. It keeps changing.
So if we consider, even from the perspective of science, scientific knowledge is progressing, at the same time it is evolving. What was considered a fact today, what was considered a fact a few hundred years ago or even 50 years ago, that may be rejected now. There’s a famous scientist, I think he said that, now he’s a philosopher of science, he says that the fact, the theories we like, we call them facts.
The facts we don’t like, we call them theories. Now again, this is not a criticism of science. It is because of science we are able to have this communication.
The point is that even science acknowledges that we can never have conclusive knowledge because at the material level, the things are changing. Our capacity to observe the things are changing. Our own intellectual conceptions of how to analyse what we have observed, that’s changing.
So three things. The things themselves are changing. The instruments, the external instruments, the tools we use for observing them are changing.
And our own intellectual conceptions of how to process those things, they are changing. So because of that, material knowledge keeps changing. And that’s why we say that when we talk about facts, is this factual? So he says, we don’t see facts independent of the theories.
It is based on a particular theory that we have that we look at facts. So I’ll explain what I mean by this. So you talk about say, Vishnu coming out of the nose of Brahma or whatever, many unbelievable seeming things like that.
So what science itself is aware of is that when science observes, how does science learn knowledge? It is that we observe something, maybe once, twice, three times, four times, ten times, hundred times. And then we arrive at a theory. When I was in England, I was invited to speak on science and spirituality at Cambridge University.
So while driving, we passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen that apple fall. Some people say it fell on his head, some people say it fell in front of him. So that tree is preserved.
It’s like a pilgrimage place for scientists or scientific students. Now, when Newton saw that fruit falling, what happened was, that was a one-time incident. But then from that, he asked, what made this fruit fall? And then he came up with a theory of gravity, which is his brilliance.
But how was that theory confirmed? That by, okay, this apple fell. Does a stone fall? Does an iron block fall? Does it fall here only in England? Does it fall in France? Does it fall in America? So science basically looks at, when an observation is made, is it repeated over time and over space? And if it is repeated over time and space, then we call it a theory. And a theory eventually, if it is further vindicated by experiments, then it becomes, it considers a proven theory, then it becomes a law.
So the point is that, why am I talking about this is, when we talk about something being logical or rational, what we essentially mean is that, this is logical or rational means, this makes sense based on my experience and my extrapolation from that experience. So this is what I’ve experienced. This is how things work.
And this is how things can work. But this doesn’t seem to make sense. This may not work like this.
This doesn’t make sense. So what we consider rational, what we consider possible is based on two things, our experience and what we consider as an acceptable extrapolation from that experience. Like so there’s conjecture always involved.
Yeah, but even now, Newton’s theory, which is considered to be a universal truth, scientists then found that if you go deep into the atom, then objects don’t fall. Objects, the fundamental particles don’t obey the principle of gravity. And that’s why we came up with quantum physics.
So gravity is not exactly a universal law that applies everywhere. And it’s a more complicated thing. At the fundamental particle level, there are other forces, there is the strong force and the weak force that applies.
So then Newton’s theory was nuanced. It is true, but it is not universally true. It is not true at the fundamental particle level.
So why am I giving this example? I don’t want to go into science too much. This illustrates the logical error in something called as uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism is the thought system which holds that all of reality across space and time behaves uniformly.
That means the way I have experienced things, the way we have experienced things, that is how everything happens everywhere. So uniformitarianism is sometimes assumed to be true or is assumed to be logical, is assumed to be rational. But there is no guarantee that it is.
So it is not a scientifically proven or even a scientifically provable theory. So it’s not that everything everywhere has to work the same way it works in our experience. So now, what does this mean? Now, does this mean that anything can happen anywhere? No, that’s not the exact point.
The point is that if something doesn’t seem to work, doesn’t seem sensible according to our conceptions, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s impossible. In even Shakespeare, I think, in Macbeth, he says, and in Hamlet, he says to Horatio, there are more things in the universe than what your philosophy can achieve. So the idea is that the universe is much more complex than our conceptions of the universe.
So certain things may be possible somewhere. Now, how exactly does it happen? How can, say, somebody be born from the nose of someone? Now, if you want to go into specifics, we can look at specific explanations that when, if that Lord is appearing, the Lord does not require, He comes in a spiritual form. He does not require to get a material body, which comes by normal human processes of reproduction.
He can come in any way. And so, He does not necessarily have to obey the normal laws of nature. In fact, this raises the response to the question what Raghunath Prabhu mentioned that, is this a miracle? This is important.
Listen up, Raghunath. This is going to be important. I’m on the edge of my seat and my phone’s going crazy.
Everybody wants the answers about the Naga people. We all want to go there. Are you just making that up? No, my phone’s buzzing out of control right now.
Naga people, Naga people. Don’t forget that question. With respect to miracles, generally, there are three questions which can be asked from a logical perspective.
Did the event actually happen? Somebody says it was a miracle. Did it actually happen? And the second is, can it, is it not explainable by natural means? By natural means, by our natural factors and forces. The two individuals by the same name being there next to each other, it’s rare.
So we could say improbable, but it’s not impossible. Okay, that shut that one down, Raghunath. Sherry, sorry.
So then the third is, if it can’t be explained by natural forces, then is that an action of an action of a deity or a divinity? So then what we call as a miracle, so Einstein has famously said that there are two ways of living life. One is to see everything as a miracle and one other is to see nothing as a miracle. So, so in one sense, just because something happens routinely, doesn’t make it less extraordinary.
Prabhupada would give the example that… Hmm, interesting. Oh, let’s repeat that one. Let’s repeat.
Yeah, let’s repeat that. That’s very interesting. There’s miracles that are happening routinely, you’re saying.
Yeah, so just because something happens ordinarily doesn’t make it, or routinely they’re happening, doesn’t make it any less extraordinary. So Prabhupada says that, you know, you just feed some grass to a cow and it gives milk. How extraordinary is that? Is it that easy to make a machine in which you put in grass and it gives milk? That’s a Krishna miracle.
Yeah, it’s not easy. It’s miraculous. One of my friends is, he’s done, he’s, you could say, a scientist researcher in the digestive system and he says, now when the body stops working, we try to get some artificial parts.
If my hand gets cut or gets damaged, I can get a limb, artificial limb for that purpose. If my heart is not working, I can get a pacemaker. If my kidney is not working, I can do dialysis.
So now when people have digestive problems, so they thought that, can we create an artificial digestive machine and put it in the belly so that the digestion can happen? Now they’re trying it and made some advancement, but digestion is such a complicated phenomenon. Now I talked with this friend about three years ago. So he said that, you know, current, according to current science, we would require not a machine, but a factory, a factory that would run into several miles.
Several miles. Several miles. Now, of course, nanotechnology and things may have changed, but the idea is that it’s extremely complicated process.
So if we consider in terms of science, you know, that we say this requires a lot of work. So in science, they say work means force and displacement. I have to carry a huge bag and I have to carry it for a lot of distance.
That’s a lot of work. So if you consider that work, so the amount of work required to digest a morsel of food, when the food goes inside, it goes into an alimentary canal and it gets processed. It’s pressed again and again and again and again.
So if you consider it at work, so actually the amount of work required to digest one morsel of food is more than the amount of work that an average human being performs throughout the day. Most of us don’t do physical labour much. Now, so who is performing that work? It’s a miracle.
It’s almost like the only time we think of our digestion is when it doesn’t work. Right. Well, and of course, you know, Krishna is going to say in the 15th chapter, I am the fire of digestion in all bodies of all living beings.
So, so, you think, aham vaishvanarobhutva praninam dehamashrita pranapanasamajita pachyamyanachaturvidam. That’s 15-14. So he says I am the digestive fire.
So that means just the act, that activity of digestion, it is so routine, but that doesn’t make it any less extraordinary in terms of the complexity and even you could say from a mathematical perspective, improbability. One of my friends is also a space scientist. So he was researching that how probable is it that we may, that the way the universe has come out according to science from a particular way, the Big Bang and all that thing, how probable is it that we may find another planet with life on it? They say that the probability is impossibly low.
Why? It’s a mathematical calculation that it takes so much, everything, all these mathematically, so many things have to fall right into place for life to arise. What are the probabilities of their theories correct? That’s a good way of looking at it. No, but just three, four things we could say is that, you know, the Earth, we’re a little closer to the sun or a little further from the sun.
Right. It will be too hot or too cold. If the Earth were moving around, rotating on its axis too fast, a little faster, a little slower, a little faster, we would have all kinds of storms and you would have a lot of planetary imbalance.
A lot of things like that. But the point is that when they say that the probability of life evolving on, of conditions suitable for life coming on some other planet and the life coming on those planets, it’s impossibly low. But then that applies, that impossibly low probability applies even to Earth and still we are here.
Yeah. So our very existence is also a miracle. So if you look at the cosmology from the perspective of modern science, even our very existence is a miracle.
So that’s why Einstein says one way to look at it is to see nothing as a miracle, and the other is to see everything as a miracle. So we could say some miracles are familiar to us and sometimes we lose the sense of the miracles in them. And some miracles are so unfamiliar that we deem them impossible.
So while we’re on this planet talk, there are other planets, we understand like materialists or people who have no faith in Vedic culture, they think, well, the probability is very, very low. But in the Vedic paradigm, there’s planets like Earth out there. Is that what the Vedic paradigm teaches? There’s other earthly planets where there’s other things going on, like it goes on in Earth where there’s good times and bad times, hot and cold, distress and happiness.
They have the same sort of ups and downs as Earth. Are they actual planets you can go to? You could visit. What’s our idea behind that? I always wanted to ask a spiritual scientist these questions.
So two things, I’ll talk from the material or scientific perspective and from a spiritual perspective. From the scientific perspective, all that honest scientists can say is that life as we know it has not been found on any other planets. Two things.
We haven’t searched the whole universe. We haven’t found in whatever we have searched. And what have we not found? Life as we know it.
Life as we know it means that generally life as we know it requires a particular temperature range. It requires oxygen. It requires water.
So when scientists say we have not found life on other planets, it’s not that they scan every centimetre of that planet to check whether there’s life on it. They just check whether water is there or not, whether there is oxygen there or not, whether temperature is conducive for life or not. So that’s all.
So science can only say that life as we know it has not been found on other planets. And there is a renegade scientist who is proposed. Who is this renegade? Who is that renegade scientist? It’s like the guy from Back to the Future.
Okay. So I can get that name. But anyway, he has proposed that maybe on the moon where several expeditions have gone, we have not buried, we have not dug under the crust of the moon.
Maybe there are microbes and life form under the crust of the moon. Sure. So the point is that science, scientific knowledge, so science does not say that life doesn’t exist on other planets.
All that it can say is life as we know it has not been found on other planets. Yeah, sure. But who’s to say it’s like life? I’m not looking for life as we know it.
If I’m going to another planet, I want to see life as I don’t know it. Perceive of it. I never can guess of it.
Hairy, massive, hairy beings. Snake beings. Round beings that roll.
I’m not looking for a guy that looks like Italian like me. Well, you know, Prabhu, it’s interesting because what you’re bringing up is actually something that Raghunath and I just happened to speak about a few days ago, is that even as children, like both he and I shared this idea that like, you know, we would hear a teacher say that life cannot exist on these other planets because the conditions for life don’t exist. And even as children, we thought, well, what if there’s other life that doesn’t need the same conditions that we have? It almost, like in other words, it almost seems like we have the potential to be over intelligent about something, right? Like, in other words, I’ve got, I’ve gained so much material knowledge, but I’ve kind of lost a little bit of like broad mindedness that’s necessary for rational thinking.
And so how could I say life can’t exist on any other planet because the conditions don’t exist there? When even a child could understand, well, maybe other life doesn’t need those conditions. That’s beautifully put. See, rationality began as a call for open mindedness.
You could say, if you look at the history of intellectual history of the West, of course, rationality has been there since Greco-Roman times, Greek times, but especially in the modern times. So the religious theocracy or religious rules, they had certain closed mindedness and rationality was, let’s be open minded. Let’s think about it.
Let’s explore. Let’s explore the world. The rationality began as open mindedness, but unfortunately, in the name of rationality today, people are being encouraged to become closed minded or not just encouraged, mandated.
This is not possible. This is not possible. And you’ll be cancelled in a sense.
Cancelled scientists. But scientists will be cancelled if they broadcast ideas like this. They won’t get funding, right? Yeah.
So the thing is that if we consider from the human broad perspective of human society, one genre of movies that is immensely popular is sci-fi, science fiction, the DC universe, the Marvel universe, so many things like that. It’s blockbuster movies. So we can say that the… Oh, you froze on us for a second.
Please start that sentence again. We can say… So I was talking about the blockbuster movies of science fiction. So from that we can infer that attraction to the supernatural is natural for the human heart or the human mind, whatever, for human beings.
Hold it. Get that one. There’s a hashtag in there.
Attraction to the supernatural. Attraction to the supernatural is natural. Is natural.
So in one sense, we have said, this is how this works. This is how this works. This is how this works.
But then we want to know, is there something more? Something beyond? And people are attracted by fascinating powers that certain superheroes have or even some otherwise ordinary people have. So if the universe were so cut and dry that there is nothing possible within the… I won’t say within the limits of rationality. I’ll say it’s within the limits of how we have defined rationality.
Then why would we have attraction for something beyond that? So maybe there is something in the universe beyond that. Now this is not a foolproof argument. I’m not making a foolproof argument.
It’s food for thought. Open-minded exploration. Just because we have an attraction so much.
So why is it that we humans, whatever we have called a train to believe as rational, we want to suspend our rational faculty and enjoy things which seem irrational? Very interesting. So in other words, it’s almost like one could, one possible explanation is that programmed in us somewhere is the desire to seek truth that lies beyond what our senses can perceive. Yes, perfect.
That’s true. And ultimately, you know, the supreme supernatural reality is Krishna. So the soul, the human heart longs for Krishna and longs to celebrate the supernatural activities of Krishna.
And not knowing about Krishna, we celebrate and cherish the supernatural activities of other heroes that we have created. To fill that God-shaped hole. Fill that hole.
God-shaped hole. Beautifully put, yeah. Once you break down the so-called rational mind, then it makes you want to answer, then it makes you want to really ask, well, all right, well, what do you guys believe? What do the Vedic teachings teach? Here’s a good one.
We’re talking about Deity and Aditi. One gives birth to the demons. One gives birth to the demigods.
Here’s a question for you. Who gives birth to all the humans? Like, who’s my ancestor? Is it from a demigod? Or there’s progenitors put on Earth birthing out different human races? Where are we coming from? Who’s the father of mankind? Is it one person? Is like me and Merica and Kastuba all related to one another? We’re just distant cousins? What’s going on? Okay. Before I answer this question, let me put a, let me draw the importance of how our perception or the way we pursue things changes what we perceive.
So, say, consider that, say, I have a, say, a black hole, charcoal, and I have white chalk, and I crush both of them into powder. And I mix the two thoroughly. And then I look at it.
I see it is, it is a grey powder. Now, if I look at the same thing under a microscope, I don’t see any grey powder at all. I see black particles and I see white particles.
Now, what is it? I can work with this. Okay. So what is it really? Is it grey powder? Black particles and white particles.
So that now what we call as reality depends on our scale of perception. Oh, man, I like to hold it. They got to note that down.
What we call reality depends on our scale of perception. So what this means is that from our scale of, so the two things can seem completely different from different scales of perception, black and white particles or a grey powder. So similarly, many of the incidents that are described in the Bhagavatam, they are described from the perspective of the Devas.
They are described from a, you could say, not exactly a spiritual, but a celestial perspective, from the perspective of the Devas. So in the, whereas we humans pursue things from our human perspective. So now it is not, if two people start arguing, is this black, is this brown powder or is this white and black particles? Well, it’s both.
It’s just a different perception, different scale of observation, you could say. So many of the things that seem irrational for us when we study the Bhagavatam, they are just things which have been described from a different scale of observation. So within that scale of observation, yes, it is, to answer your specific question that, yes, Diti and Aditi, they give birth to the Devatas and the demons and the demigods and the demons.
Now human beings come from a being called Manu. Manu Swayambhu, Manu is the progenitor of human beings. And so there is a certain level of generation of life forms that happens at the higher planets, in the higher levels of reality.
And from there a human being comes to the earth and then human population grows over here. So now, if you look at our modern scientific way of looking at things, we may have a particular version of history that, particular vision of history, that there was a stone age man and then there was this and there was this and there was this. And that’s how living beings have come about.
Now these two don’t have to necessarily be contradictory. That what the Bhagavatam is describing is how life came in the universe at different levels. Now after human beings came on the earth, there could have been many ups and downs.
We don’t have a complete record of human history. At everything that has happened everywhere. If you consider evolution, it’s based on fossils.
And scientists themselves say that, you know, almost when fossils are preserved under the earth, that what happens is, most of the earth, if there are rains and the topsoil gets washed away, eroded, and so it says most of the fossils in the earth are at the bottom of the ocean. And we don’t have access to them. So I am not saying that archaeology is wrong.
I’m just saying that within the methodology of archaeology itself, there are limitations. So we have one vision of history that science has given us, and another vision of history that Bhagavatam has given us. And the two don’t have to be seen as contradictory.
They are just two different ways of looking at reality from two different scales of observation. Okay, now what you’re telling me sounds very rational. Like I can appreciate what you’re saying.
If you don’t mind, let me complete this point. Oh, I’m sorry. Let me tell you that, you know, by placing science and scripture in competition, we devalue scripture and we devalue science.
They are two different branches of knowledge. They are two different ways of looking at the world. So when, why do we, I’ll explain why we devalue scripture and why we devalue science.
We devalue scripture because scripture is giving us another body of knowledge. It is when Parikshit Maharaj is hearing the Bhagavatam, he is not hearing Bhagavatam primarily for precise history of the universe. He is hearing the Bhagavatam to hear how throughout the history of the universe, there are people who have sought higher consciousness, there are people who have sought to know the meaning of life, and there are people who have achieved that.
So he is studying history to know about those who have transcended, in a sense, transcended history, who have attained eternal life. So history is within the time domain. So his knowledge is not primarily, his interest is not primarily in history.
It is in those who have throughout history transcended the world. Similarly, when the Bhagavatam is describing cosmology, its purpose is not to describe cosmology. Its purpose is to describe how throughout the cosmos, there are living beings who are trying to know, who are worshipping God, who are following Dharma, who are seeking spiritual consciousness.
Probably you’ll come to the fifth canto later, and there are 10 chapters, 16 to 25, which describe the cosmology. But the actual verses about cosmology are barely about 20%. And 80% verses there are that in this planet, these beings are offering these prayers to God.
In this planet, these beings are offering these prayers to God. The Bhagavatam’s focus is clear. So when we place science and scripture, science and Bhagavatam in competition, we are devaluing scripture, because scripture is giving us knowledge of how to raise our consciousness, how to attain Krishna.
And science gives us knowledge, we could say, of how to function in the world. How to function in the world. So there are two different branches of knowledge.
And the two don’t have to be competitive. They can be complementary. They don’t have to be contradictory.
They can be complementary. Okay, if I’m understanding correctly, it’s almost something like this. Like say, I bring a friend to a restaurant to eat.
And they have their own conception of what the proper dining experience is, or what an excellent dining experience is. And it has to do with the atmosphere in the restaurant, as well as the quality of the food. And they have a particular taste of whether they like some fancy place, let’s say.
And then I bring them to a place that’s not fancy at all. Externally, it’s very different. To them, when they walk in there, they’re looking and they’re saying, this is not a good restaurant.
You know, it’s like picnic tables here. And, you know, they serve you on paper plates and some. But then the person says, hold it, you’re looking at this the wrong way.
We’re not here for the externals. And some people might even consider these externals charming in a way. That’s, you know, that’s another question.
But let’s focus on the important thing here. And that’s the quality of the food. And what you’re going to get here is like super excellent food.
And so someone might approach the Bhagavatam and start getting caught up in all these details that are less essential. And whether those details are right or wrong, whether they’re true or false, isn’t the question right now. Yes, exactly.
Getting obsessed over the question whether this is right or wrong is what Bhaktivinoda Thakur considers to be a burden carrier. So now, of course, we all can analyse and say, I just can’t accept this. There are ways in which it can be explained, which makes it intelligible.
That’s why we discuss some explanations. We can make it intelligible. But the point is that whether this is right or wrong, from our scale of perception, it’s very difficult to ascertain that.
And that’s not the point. So I’ll just give another example to illustrate this. I like the example of dining.
Say, in India, cricket is very common. But let’s take billiards. Now, if somebody is playing billiards and there’s an expert player, the player hits with a stick, his ball hits that ball, that ball hits that ball, that ball hits that ball, and then that ball goes into the hole.
And he wins the match. He becomes a champion. Now, if we had a camera, which was observing that billiards board from above, only the billiards table, nothing more.
And then we saw the balls moving. This stick hit over here and this ball moved. And then that ball went into the hole.
The entire motion of all the balls could be explained in terms of the laws of physics. Because this stick hit this ball with this force at this angle, and that’s why it hit this, this, this, this, and that’s how the ball went into the hole. Now, that’s a correct explanation.
At the same time, if we expand the focus of the camera, and then we see there’s a champion billiards player over there. And why did the ball go into the hole? Because this player is such a champion. He’s practised so much, he has so much talent, and he hit the ball, it went into the hole.
So, we could say the physical or the mechanical explanation and the personal explanation, they are not contradictory, they’re complementary. So, within the frame, if I’m only looking at the table, then I have to explain the motion of the balls in terms of the laws of physics. And I get a correct explanation.
Now, is that correct explanation the only correct explanation? Is that the complete explanation? No, that’s that explanation. If I say the ball went into the hole because of the laws of physics, does that mean if I say the ball went into the hole because this player is so expert, does that mean that explanation is wrong? No, that’s why I said that, you know, so there’s a personal explanation and there’s a mechanical explanation. And both of them are right, depending on the, here also the scale of perception or the scope of perception.
So, we don’t have to put these two explanations in opposition to each other. So, that’s why I said, if we put science and scripture in competition, we devalue scripture, but we also devalue science. Because science does give us a valid knowledge.
It’s useful knowledge, valuable knowledge. But science doesn’t bring in the personal element. Okay, the mechanical laws of physics are important.
So, it’s interesting because if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that you mentioned, you began with saying that there’s these three different levels of understanding. And one is the literalist. And then there’s a higher level of understanding, which is still more rational, actually.
But on that level, they’re questioning and they’re trying to broaden perspective. Whereas like the person on the first level actually, and you mentioned this to me the other day, is that they’re on the lower level, but they actually think they’re on a higher level because they don’t have doubts. Because those people know less because they have doubts.
I know it. It says it right here. And it seems to me like what you’re saying is, even these super intelligent people that are very advanced in science, sometimes they’re operating on that lower level.
They’re high on a low level. I was going to say that. Although they have a brain that operates very efficiently and is full of information that others may have no access to, actually their level of rational thought is somewhat stunted or undeveloped that they can’t even conceive that, oh, maybe there is a broader perspective.
And that although I have a lot of incredible insight on my perspective, it’s just one small part of a larger picture. Yes, true. There are two words.
There is science and there is scientism. Scientism is the imperialism of science or imperialism in the name of science. Science plus is imperialism.
So what I mean by that is that science is the tool for acquiring knowledge and it can give a lot of valid knowledge. But there are some people who put a halo of omniscience around science and they say the only valid knowledge is what has come from science. If anything cannot be understood through science, that is not worth knowing, that doesn’t exist, that is wrong.
So now it’s ironic that scientism claims to be based on science, but there is no scientific proof for scientism. There is no scientific way to prove that science is the only source of all knowledge. So it’s like a fallacy, the whole thing.
Yeah, it’s a logical fallacy. Yes, so I would say there are many scientists who are very broad-minded. Einstein himself, he said that the sense of mystery, that is the womb of all enquiry.
And in fact, he said that the sciences, in his time he didn’t use the word spirituality, he used the word religion. He says religion, science and art are all fruits of the same tree of human knowledge. So there are just different ways in which we look at the universe and we come up with different understandings.
That’s why there is no need for these to be seen as contradictory, they can be complementary. And would you say that the need to see them contradictory is symptomatic of the Kanishka mentality? Yes, yes, definitely. That, see there is, this brings again the point of humility, that faith, some people think faith means certainty.
This is how it is and everything else is wrong. But if we have faith in God, then what it would also mean is that I understand that God is far bigger than me and God’s creation is far bigger than me. The way God works is maybe far bigger than how I can understand it.
So faith, we can have certainty in the existence of God, certainty in the benevolence of God. But there may be uncertainty in exactly how God is working. Do I clearly understand? So that is humility.
And so I would say that that’s what creates openness. In fact, if you want to learn from life, what, how do we learn from life? We approach every moment, we approach every event, we approach every person with a sense of vulnerability, with a sense of openness. Now what can I learn from this? What can I learn from here? Even when we are going to teach someone, I may say I know the truth and I am going to teach it, but if I hear from those who I am going to teach, I learn a lot.
So I would say that the willingness to be open, to learn, to re-examine one’s own understanding, that is a sign of spiritual advancement. So uncertainty or doubts, they don’t necessarily mean a lack of faith. So I say that doubts may be because of absence of faith, but doubts may also be because of presence of introspection.
Presence of intelligent contemplation. It’s that person that’s pushing the borders of the limits of their perception or the limits of their understanding. Yes, true, perfect.
Prabhu, you have blown everyone’s mind here, but one question is left unanswered and people are demanding an answer to this question. Mara, I can look it on her face right now. Mara is like, what about the snake people? What about, is there a planet of snakes? Let’s just go, we’re not even questioning anymore.
Just tell us and we’ll accept it. Tell us, we’ll accept, we’ll believe. We understand that there’s rational mind and there’s a bigger mind.
Tell us the Vedic perception, the Vedic conception of the planet of snakes, subterranean heavens. Can you talk about the universe according to the Vedic version? Yeah, so basically that what is the purpose of the universe? It is to facilitate the souls to fulfil their desires for pleasure according to their own conceptions and different bodies offer different kinds of pleasure. So the snake body offers a particular kind of pleasure, but the snake body cannot offer much pleasure on a planet where there are many other living beings and they are fighting and they’re dominating.
So a full potential for pleasure in a snake body can come on a planet where the snakes are ruling. There you go, there you go. Mara, it’s answered now.
You need a master snake if you want to enjoy in a snake body. You need snake activities. Yeah, snake government, snake sports, sporting events.
What’s a subterranean heaven? Yeah, so the idea is that when we are on earth, this is in between the two levels. There is the higher planets, so the heavens and there are lower planets. But what happens is karma is never black and white.
It’s not that everyone who is bad has always done all bad things throughout their life. And everyone who is good has always done good things in their life. So sometimes some people may have done some bad things because of which they go to the lower planets.
But they have also done some good things. That’s why they are in lower planet, but they are relatively in prosperity. So that’s subterranean planet.
They are like, you could say a five-star jail. Five-star jail. Five-star jail.
They have them in America. So subterranean heavenly planet. Okay.
They’re high on a low level. I like that. That’s beautiful.
Can you just come over and hang out with us, be our friend and spend weeks or months with us? Everybody, I can see on our chat board, people are really, really appreciating all that you’ve shared with us. We dealt with our rational question. We didn’t have time to get to our ethical question.
I think we’ve got to bring you back for that. Maybe we can bring you back soon. Would that be all right? It’s an honour to be here.
And yes, it was a very stimulating discussion. I’m happy to be of service. And whenever you want, I’m happy to come.
Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Everyone, please, for more from Chaitanya Charmaprabhu, you can go to the website, spiritualscientist, thespiritualscientist.com? The spiritualscientist.
The spiritualscientist.com. And especially daily, one of the important things about Wisdom of the Sages is that it’s a daily thing. And that’s why it’s life-changing. That’s why it takes root.
It gets traction. It begins to change your perception and your way of life, your very life. His Gita Daily is coming out daily.
He’s got a 300-word meditation on a different verse from the Bhagavad Gita every day. And from this conversation, you can understand that he’s always got deeper insights and interesting ways to apply these teachings from the Bhagavad Gita. So please check out GitaDaily.com. All right.
That’s right, right? GitaDaily.com? Yes. Are you coming to America anytime soon? I would love to. I think we just have to wait for the pandemic to get under control.
How’s India right now? I’m in Mumbai in Govardhan Eco Village. And how are things? Things are okay over here. India is relatively protected.
Mumbai still, things are a little bad, but they’re better than a month or two ago. Sure. Okay.
So it’s coming down and hopefully not more. We’re hoping to see you in India. We’re hoping to have you here.
You can come to our Wisdom of the Sages picnic. That would be great. Oh, that would be great, wouldn’t it? Like all the tug of wars and the wrestling would end and everyone would just be sitting around listening.
Well, also, when we’re doing our 300 hour and our wisdom training in India, we can have Chaitanya Charan perhaps come and give a class. That would be incredible. Or many classes.
He lives at the Govardhan Eco Village. Incredible. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Thanks for this incredible Sunday morning with the spiritual scientist. Super impressed and super just honoured to have these great souls in my life that are just like they come to us on a regular basis. I feel so fortunate.
Thanks for everybody for joining us. I’m always amazed at people joining every day like this. It’s impressive.
It changes us. And if you’re an old zoomer out there and now you’re an other, we worry about you. Right.
Because people were saying whatever happened to the wilderness family, right? The golden brown family. The golden brown. Where is the golden brown family? Where is onion, garlic, ginger? Where’s onion, garlic, ginger? There’s somebody.
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I’m back with sweet baby Krishna tomorrow at 830 p.m. And we’re going to we’re diving into these beautiful stories from the 10th canto, as well as chanting. Thanks for joining us. And now we do what we do best.
We sing. We dance. We leave our body right here.