If scripture contains advanced material knowledge such as Vimana-shastra why don’t we use it to make planes today?

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Transcript

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and that they too are theories that need to be refuted. If the Vedic knowledge was there in the past, which was lost because of say Muslim or British invasions, then if there is Vimanshastra, why don’t we make airplanes today and prove the superiority? First thing is, we should know that there is spiritual knowledge and there is material knowledge.
And scriptures primary purpose is to give us spiritual knowledge. So, if we position scripture as a competitor to science, we devalue scripture by that. Science can tell us how to make a plane and how to fly a plane.
Scripture may contain that knowledge, but that’s not the purpose of scripture. You know, Arjuna, when he is overwhelmed by indecision, he is not concerned about learning from Krishna how to shoot an arrow, how to develop some missile for destroying enemies. That knowledge he has got from other sources.
He is interested in understanding the ultimate purpose of life. And Parikshit Maharaj is about to die and Shukadeva Goswami enlightens him. He is not interested in knowing about airplanes and computers and things like that.
He is interested in knowing about Krishna so that he can fix his mind on Krishna and attain life’s ultimate purpose. So, I have a whole presentation on spirituality in the age of science. And I talk about three main things.
Science cannot tell us about origin, values and purpose. Where we came from, what is right, what is wrong. And what is the ultimate thing that we should achieve for it.
So, that is the primary knowledge that we get from scripture. If some material knowledge is available and it is useful, we can use it. But we don’t have to position scripture as a competitor to modern knowledge, modern knowledge systems in science.
So, the scriptural knowledge is superior to modern knowledge in the sense that it offers us something which modern knowledge and modern knowledge systems do not offer us. So, if we focus too much on the material side, say if we consider spiritual knowledge as a total circle, a small part of it is material knowledge. But it’s like Prabhupada was very practical that in the Vedic body of knowledge there is Ayurveda.
But Prabhupada himself preferred Ayurveda. But if it was necessary, he would sometimes take Allopathy. Because the point is that he is concerned more about not how the body is healed, but what the body is used for.
So, that we should use our body for growing spiritually, for serving Krishna. That is what his primary purpose was. And that is what we should aim for in our own lives.
If we can heal it by Ayurveda, good. If not, Allopathy is fine. There is nothing wrong with it.
So, Ayurveda and Allopathy can be competitors. But the Bhagavad Gita and Allopathy are not competitors. So, we don’t have to portray scriptural knowledge as superior to material knowledge.
There are points, like Vedic maths, in many ways can do things which modern maths cannot do. At least some things about it. That is good.
We can use it. But the superiority of Vedic knowledge is not in the material realm. It is more in the transmaterial realm in terms of understanding the questions about where we came from, what is the basis for making sound decisions and what is the ultimate purpose of life.
These are questions which scripture provides answers for. Then we can avoid the whole debate which is actually irrelevant. Even if we are able to make airplanes using Viman Shastras.
Ok, what then? The important thing is that may increase people’s faith as this Vedas contains some good knowledge. But then if we emphasize that the Vedas contain superior material knowledge as compared to modern science, then there are so many aspects in the Vedas which are not so easily materially understandable today. And then we draw unnecessary attention to that.
What about this? What about that? Our focus should be what is the purpose of these books themselves. Arjuna when asking Krishna, he is not asking Krishna knowledge about history or geography or science or physics or whatever. Similarly, Parashar Maharaj is also not doing that.
That might be incidentally mentioned and that mention is relevant, it is applicable, it is usable information, we can use it. But the primary purpose is to raise human consciousness. So the way I put it is, science can make things better.
Spirituality can make people better. So it is that inner reorientation, better management of our emotions, better achievement of our own, of doing justice to our talents and achieving our goals. That is all that we can do through spiritual growth.
That’s what spiritual knowledge, scriptural knowledge is primarily giving us.