Is God an invention or a discovery?

[Youth meeting at Hindu Samaj of Perth, Australia]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank all of you for coming here today, early afternoon, and I’ll try to share a few thoughts on this topic of, is God an invention or a discovery? Firstly, what does the topic mean literally? When something is an invention, that is something which we have made, we have created. Something is a discovery, that means it already exists and we find it.
So, another way of phrasing the topic could be, that did man make God or did God make man? Is humanity a creation of God or is God a creation of humanity? There are many people who think that there are people in the world who are fearful, who are unable to face life. And because they are unable to face life, that is why they imagine something like God. And then they go and worship God.
In fact, there was a prominent Bollywood movie, PK, which had this theme that, jo dar gaya, wo mandir gaya. Those who are afraid, they go to temple. So, I wrote a whole book, responded to that movie, called the book GK for PK.
So, GK was three levels, general knowledge, God knowledge and Gita knowledge. Based on that, I answered the questions. The movie had many valid points about the hypocrisy that characterises religion in many cases.
But it suffered from generalisation, blanket generalisation. So, we could say that there are hundreds of things people do out of fear. Because people feel fearful, that is why they go and watch movies like PK.
That’s why they forget their fear. That’s why we watch TV. That’s why we watch sports.
That’s why we watch. We are just bored with life. We are fearful of life.
We are angry with things. So, out of negative emotions, when we want to escape from that, we do many things. Now, when a child is fearful, the child may run into the lap of the mother and hug her tightly.
Now, does that the child goes to a mother and the child is in fear, does that mean that the mother doesn’t exist? Not at all. All that it means is, yes, the child may go to the mother because of many other reasons also, not just because of fear. So, just because people go to God because of fear doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist or that God is something created by some people’s imagination.
One of the strongest evidences for the benevolence of belief, benevolence means how believing in God benefits people, has one of the strongest evidence, has come from science itself. Oxford Handbook of Religion and Health was one of the biggest studies that was in the history of science and religion. In fact, when I was in America, I met one of the scientists who is a prominent, Harold Kinnig was the lead researcher.
So, I met one of his colleagues and then I met him also. So, now he is doing a study about specific religious practises and their correlation with health. So, he, Kinnig, Larson and McElroy, three of them, they took 2,000 published studies.
They were not just themselves doing studies, but they also took studies done in different parts of the world. So, you could say a meta-study and they put it all together. If people believe in God and the people don’t believe in God, what is the effect on health, physical health and mental health? And so, physical health parameters like blood pressure, heart disease or cancer and depression, suicide, addictive behaviours.
So, they compared this. Go ahead. So, they found that if people attended a spiritual programme once a week, on an average such people lived seven years longer than their non-believing counterparts.
So, religious belief actually increased not just the duration of life, but also the quality of life. Found that religious youth showed significantly lower levels of drug and alcohol abuse, premature sexual involvement, criminal delinquency and suicidal tendencies than their non-religious counterparts. And this is not just for younger people, it is also for older people.
Elderly people with a deep personal religious faith have a stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction than their less religious peers. So, both in terms of length and in terms of quality, they found that religious belief was a positive correlation. So, Connick’s conclusion was a high SQ faithfulness to God appears to benefit people of all means, educational levels and ages.
SQ refers to, does anyone know? IQ is what? Intelligence quotient. EQ is? Emotional quotient. SQ is? Spiritual quotient.
Spiritual quotient, thank you. So, spiritual quotient refers to the spiritual sensibility that people have, the understanding that there is something more to life beyond what we see and experience in our day-to-day course of events. So, he is, this is the scientist, his conclusion, not just of one study, but 2000 studies combined together is that religious faith has a salutary effect on people.
So, yes, it may be that because some people are fearful, they go to God, but they are becoming better. And it is not only fearful people go to God, it is people who are healthy people who go to God and they start worshipping God and they become healthier. Now, of course, that people feel better by doing something in itself does not prove anything whether that thing exists or not.
Some people may take alcohol and feel better. That does not necessarily mean alcohol is good. Some people may take placebo medicines and they may get healed.
Placebo medicines is doctors, they just give sugar pills instead of medicines to patients. And the patient thinks that I have got some medicine and the patient gets cured by that without having been given any medicine. So, the positive effect of something does not necessarily prove anything about its reality or unreality.
But what we are, what the point over here is that if we assume God is an invention, then it is a beneficial invention. It is not a harmful invention. Now, I will talk a little later about how there is violence in the name of religion and what causes that and what that can be, how that can be dealt with.
At this point, overall humanity’s perspective, it’s beneficial. Now, if we move, if God were a discovery and that means that’s the sound truth to nature by harmonising with which we become healthier and happier. But if God were an invention, what would it imply? Then if we look at the history of the universe, what would be the history of the universe? Nothing existed because of nothing.
Nothing exploded because of nothing and gave rise to everything. That’s a beautiful logic, isn’t it? That’s essentially the story. If there is no transcendental starting point, there was one atheist who wrote a book explaining how everything came from nothing.
Now, if you read his book, all that he does is he redefines nothing so that nothing is actually a complex quantum mechanical vacuum that takes pages upon pages of the most intricate calculus to describe. So, it’s definitely not nothing. It’s something.
We don’t see anywhere nothing giving rise to anything. Now, everything comes from something. So, we are left, if we do not consider God as the origin, then where did everything come from? Whatever theory we may propose by which the universe came about, what existed before that theory? What activated things so that things could move onwards from that theory? These are questions that remain unanswered.
So, go ahead. Now, some people say, okay, why should I believe in God? Science deals with facts and let’s focus on facts. You religious people, you spiritual people, you believe in things like God and so on.
Who has seen those things? So, this kind of dichotomy is sometimes proposed between science and religion. Science deals with facts, religion deals with faith. However, the fact is that even science begins with faith.
Last year, I was invited to Cambridge University to give a talk on science and spirituality. So, while we were going there, we passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling. So, that place is like a pilgrimage place for scientists and for scientifically-minded people.
This was the place where Newton came up with a brilliant discovery of the principle of gravity. Yes, it is testimony to Newton’s brilliance and it is testimony to something much more. Millions of people before Newton had seen fruits falling.
Now, instead of Newton, suppose a monkey had been sitting there. A fruit fell down. What do you think the monkey would have done? Yeah, it would have just picked up the fruit, eaten it and gone on its way.
Thank you. So, now Newton could also have done that. But he asked the question, what made this fruit fall? This question indicates something fundamental.
Newton had the faith that things don’t happen by chance, that there is an order in nature and that order could be discovered by observation, hypothesis, experimentation. But it is his brilliance that he discovered the principle of gravity. However, the question, why should there be any order in nature at all? That is a presumption which is essential for the scientific method to work.
So, this is actually a starting article of faith. Einstein stated that, the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. What that means is that, if we consider from the atheistic perspective, the whole universe is a result of unguided natural processes and our brain is a result of unguided natural processes.
So, why should the universe is a result of unguided natural processes exhibit any order? Why should that order correlate with the way our brain functions? These are two distinct questions and I will explain both of them. Some of you kids might play a ball, throw a ball. Now, suppose you are at the bottom of a well and there is a competition, you have to throw the ball up.
But you have to throw the ball with such pace that the ball comes out and rests on the sill of the well. It doesn’t fall back inside, it doesn’t fall outside. Is that easy? Very difficult.
If you throw the ball up, a little less force, it will come back inside. A little more force, it will fall back, it will go outside. So, exactly the right amount of force is required so that the ball comes on the sill and rests over there.
So, if we consider the prominent theory about the origin of the universe that is present today, that is some version of the Big Bang theory. Now, what it holds is there was some singularity that existed in the beginning. Where it came from? That is when the Science magazine on its 125th anniversary published a special issue of 125 questions that science does not have the answer to.
This was the first question they asked. Science does not have an answer. Where did the universe come from? So, but we assume that there was a singularity over there and then boom, it exploded.
Now, after an explosion, there are two forces in action. Assuming that the singularity already had gravity within it, the force of gravity will pull all the matter together and the force of explosion will cause all the matter to go apart. Now, if the force of gravity is too strong, then all the matter will collapse back into itself.
There will be an implosion and nothing will result. If the explosive force is too strong, then the matter that has exploded, that will move apart so fast that we will just have a uniformly distributed dust cloud. The force of gravity which contracts and the explosive force which throws apart, both of them have to be precisely balanced so that matter can come together and form fundamental particles and form atoms and eventually form planets and the universe at large.
So, this precise balance between the contracting force of gravity and the expanding force of the explosion, this precise balance, scientists say, is similar to the balance when we throw a ball from the bottom of a well. The upward force and the downward force have to be precisely balanced so that the ball rests exactly on the sill. So, for this, if a ball, some minor quake happened in the earth and a ball was thrown up, there is practically no chance that the ball would go up just by the right force and would fall on the sill.
Even with an expert thrower of the ball, even then it would be difficult. So, this is the level of precision that is required for the universe with any kind of order to emerge. And then, even Paul Davies, go ahead, Paul Davies is actually himself a sceptic, but he says, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith the existence of a law-like order in nature.
Where does this order come from? That’s an assumption. The order is there and science discovers it. And actually the plot thickens further.
Suppose you go for an outing to some distant place and there is a lodge over there. And then, as you approach the lodge, you realise there is nobody there and you don’t have a key. What to do? And then, as you approach along the path, you find there is a key lying over there.
You pick it up and then when you come to a door, you fit the key, it exactly fits the door. And then, you open the door, you find there is another door, it’s also locked. And you look around and you find another key lying over there.
And then, open it. And then, the third key, fourth key, fifth key. Like that, if it’s a huge mansion and there are 50 doors and just near the door somewhere, you find a key.
You say, what is going on here? There must be someone who has kept the key near the door. Yes, you could say it’s your cleverness that you found the key and opened the door. But the key had to be kept over there in advance.
Similarly, Eugene Wigner is a prominent Nobel laureate scientist. And he wrote a paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. He says, now if you consider many of the concepts of advanced mathematics, some of you may, how many of you kids know about imaginary numbers? Square root of minus 1? Yeah, some of you know, I think probably some of you younger ones may not know.
But you know, now this concept of an imaginary number, it doesn’t exist in nature. That’s why it’s called an imaginary number. So many of the things that scientists discovered, Newton discovered that nature obeys a law, f is equal to g m1 m2 upon r square.
Now, this nature has a law and that law is understandable through mathematics. Mathematics is what? Mathematics is basically, especially we want integral calculus and all those conceptions from the mind. So why should the way some conception that our mind has come up with, why should that correlate with the way nature works out there? So if we say that okay, everything just came by itself.
And okay, what that would mean is that the mansion with its locked doors came by itself, the key came by itself and the key and the mansion’s door happened to be right next to each other. That’s too much stretching of faith. So actually, if we consider what science has discovered, and the remarkable amount of correlations that are essential for the scientific knowledge to progress, then it is not that belief in a higher intelligence requires too much faith.
It is rather that believing that all this order could come by chance, that requires too much faith. It is not that theism requires too much faith, it is that atheism requires too much faith. Because there’s just no way that so much coordinated order could have come by chance.
So the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics, this is a complicated quote, but essentially I explained what he’s saying. So now, one more point in this. India’s mathematician Ramayujan, he said that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God.
E is equal to MC square. Now, why should equality be there? Einstein discovered the equality, but who made the equality? Why should that equality be present at all? Suppose a cricket match is going on, and India-Pakistan cricket match, last ball, an Indian batsman is batting, and you need to hit a six to win the match. And the ball comes, it’s a short pitch ball, the batsman hooks, and the ball goes off for a six.
Everybody celebrates. In the post-match interview, the interviewer asks the batsman, how did you hit that six? He says, by the law of gravity. Now, the law of gravity or the laws of motion can explain, okay, if the ball had been hit with a little lesser force, it would have gone in the hands of the fielder, because it was hit with more force, that’s why it went.
So the laws of gravity can explain the correlation between events. The law of gravity did not cause the six to be hit. After the ball was hit, how much the ball, how far the ball went, and why the ball went that far, that is explained through the law of gravity.
So the point which I am making here is, that science discovers laws, but who put those laws in motion? How did those laws get activated? That is a fundamental question for which we need to look at something non-material. So when science discovers something, that’s like we find a key by which to open the door. It’s thrilling.
Oh yes, we discovered gravity, we discovered relativity, we discovered thermodynamics, we discovered quantum physics. It’s thrilling to find a key that opens the door. But finding the key to open the door does not explain where the key came from or where the door came from.
And it doesn’t explain at all, first of all, where the mansion came from. So science is a result of human brilliance. No doubt, but that brilliance requires some precondition without which nothing else would happen.
And what is that precondition? That is, nature should be obeying certain laws. If nature were not obeying laws, nothing could happen. Suppose there is a tribal who doesn’t know anything about agriculture.
And the tribal comes to a horticultural plant where flowers and fruits are orchards, where fruits are being grown. And he looks at this farmer. The farmer ploughs some land, puts some seed and grows it.
And then a big tree comes and big, ripe, delicious mangoes come on that. And this tribal says, amazing. This person made mangoes out of mud.
He transformed mud into mangoes. Now, what the farmer actually do? The farmer did not make the seed. The farmer did not put in the seed the potential to grow into a tree and give mangoes.
What the farmer did was planted the seed in the ground, watered it and protected it. So credit can be given definitely for watering and protecting the seed. But the farmer would not have been able to do anything if the mango seed hadn’t existed.
The mango seed had not had the potential to give a tree. Similarly, when science and technology comes up with a mobile. Now, when we have a mobile, you can just press a few buttons and talk with anyone in any part of the world.
That’s brilliant. 20-30 years ago, this would have been difficult to imagine. This is definitely, telecommunications is an expression of human brilliance.
At the same time, this technology to make telecommunications possible would not have happened if in nature, semiconductors had not existed, which allowed electronic circuitry to develop. If in nature, there had not been ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere through which electromagnetic waves could be transmitted. If in nature, electromagnetic waves had not existed in the past.
So it’s definitely human brilliance to tap what existed in nature. But we can only tap that which existed in nature. So we have to understand that God, can you go ahead? God is not the explanation for the unexplainable.
He is the explanation for explainability. And some people say that, oh, you can’t explain this, you believe that God did it. It’s not like that.
Whatever we are able to explain, whatever science is able to explain, whatever science is able to discover, it is all because there is a foundational intelligence which makes it all happen. If nature did not have a founding order, no science would be possible. So science and its foundation requires that nature have an order.
And that order in nature has to come from some higher intelligence. And that’s why God is not an invention. And he is not just a discovery like any other discovery.
Actually, God is a foundational reality, who makes all inventions and all discoveries possible. Because if God did not exist, nothing could exist, nothing existed, no scientist would exist and no invention, no discovery would be possible. Sometimes people ask, okay, if God created everything, then who created God? It’s not a good question.
But this question reflects a lack of understanding of who God is. God is by definition, the cause of all causes. Now, even from the point of view of pure logic, the cause of all causes can’t have a cause.
If the cause of all causes had a cause, then the cause of the cause of all causes would be the actual cause of all causes. And that would be God. So when we trace backward, backward, backward, backward, the point where we stop, that point is God.
So when we start with, when we try to understand God, we should start with some depiction, some image we may see in a temple and say, is this God? No, let’s start with definition first. Definition of God is the cause of all causes. So, suppose a child reads, say, a Harry Potter novel.
You read Harry Potter and you read the whole novel, enjoy it. And after that, the child reads, first time you read a novel, and the child comes to know, oh really, there is somebody called J.K. Rowling. She wrote this novel.
Okay, the child starts reading through the whole book now. Now where is J.K. Rowling in the book? Now you can read the whole Harry Potter novel, Philosopher’s Stone, or whichever one, hundred times, but you won’t find J.K. Rowling there. Does that mean J.K. Rowling doesn’t exist? No.
J.K. Rowling is a person who created the storyline, created the timeline, created the characters, but she exists outside the world of the story. So, similarly, God is the person who exists outside this world. He is the person who created the principles of cause and effect.
He is the person who activated the energy of time by which everything happens. So, to ask who created God is like asking who made a circle circular. Now who made a circle circular? A circle, by definition, is circular.
Nobody has to make a circle circular. Similarly, God, by definition, is the cause of all causes. He does not need any other cause.
To ask who made God is to reflect our lack of understanding of what the term God means. He is the source of everything. So, he is the explanation for explainability.
In the 10th chapter, 39th verse of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that whatever exists comes from me and nothing would exist if I did not exist. So, God is a foundational existence that makes all existence possible. Now, okay, you may say, okay, all this makes sense, but is there any proof for this? Now, there are different kinds of proofs for different things.
Suppose a boy and a girl are trying to form a relationship and then the girl asks the boy, do you love me? He says, of course, I love you. Prove it to me. Well, how do you prove it? Sometimes in romantic movies, they may say the boy may scratch his, the girl’s name or his arm or she may jump from a building or whatever.
Now, these are just acts of foolhardiness. They don’t necessarily prove love. Now, if I want to know what is the time in India, I say, okay, it’s 9 o’clock.
If you say it’s 9 o’clock, prove it. I can show you Google. I can show you some other world clocks.
I can show. So, the way to prove that the time in India is 9 o’clock is very different from the way to prove that someone loves someone else. Love is a very defining reality in life.
And yet, we cannot prove love by any quantifiable means. Now, we have a thermometer, we have a barometer. Can we have a love-o-metre? If you want to develop a relationship, put a love-o-metre in their heart and say, do you love me? No, I don’t care for you.
We cannot quantify love. Because, why can’t we quantify love? Because different things need to be measured in different ways. So, if we want to understand how God exists, then we need to, can you go ahead? Go ahead.
I’ll come back to this slide. Go ahead. Yeah.
So, in science, there are different kinds of reasonings. This is a little complicated. I won’t go into the technicalities.
I’ll keep things as simple as possible. There are three kinds of reasonings, called deductive, inductive and abductive reasonings. Actually, I was told this was a youth meeting.
I thought that meant a college student. This is a PowerPoint I gave in, I gave this talk in Yale University recently to a group of medical doctors. So, this may be a little difficult.
I’ll try to simplify it. So, basically, there are three, when we say that science, this is scientific, science has proven it. Now, what does it mean? Newton’s law of gravity, for example, that is something which we can prove through what is called as inductive reasoning.
Inductive reasoning means, repeatedly we do experiments. I throw a ball up, it falls down. You throw a ball up, it falls down.
And not just a ball, a metallic piece. And not just here in the world, you can go to Melbourne, you can go to Wellington, you can go to Mumbai, you can go to Baghdad, you can go to Boston and repeat it, it will fall down. So, when something can be repeated again and again, the result that comes from that is inductive reasoning.
Induction, we do it again and again, experiment it. Beyond that, when something is mathematically true, it’s axiomatic, that is called as deductive reasoning. 2 plus 3 is 5, that is induction.
But beyond that, when it comes to origin, where did everything come from? For that, science can’t do experiments. Science can’t tell the universe, oh, you know, first time you created yourself, I was not there to observe, so please create yourself again, I will observe you. Science cannot do that.
So, when it comes to historical events, science uses another form of reasoning called as abductive reasoning. Abductive reasoning means, we will call it the inference to best explanation. Go ahead.
So, abductive reasoning is like solving a whodunit mystery. Say, suppose there is a person in a room and he was found dead with a knife in his belly. Now, I am going to find out who committed the murder, who committed the crime.
There is a security camera at the door. And when a friend went there at 9 o’clock in the morning, this person was alive. At 3 o’clock, when the maid went there, he was dead.
So, then you look at in between the 6 hours, who all came in over there? Okay, there was the 5-year-old nephew of this person who went in. Now, that person is too small to put the knife and kill the person. There was an 80-year-old grandmother who also went to meet him.
She was also too old. And then there is a 23-year-old butler who had also gone inside. He must have done it.
Now, we cannot tell the butler, please commit the murder once again, so that we can catch you on camera. Now, in this case, what happens? It is an inference. It is an inference that is drawn.
Not this, not this, not this, the inference to the best explanation. But when we arrive at an inference to the best explanation, the problem with this is that it is a guess. We cannot know for sure.
It may be that that room, we thought there is only one door to it where they had a camera. But under a closet, there is a secret trapdoor. And somebody had come in from the trapdoor, committed the crime and gone back.
So, when we infer, when science infers about historical events, how did the universe come about, how did the world come about, these are not repeatable things. You cannot repeat it. Therefore, the way to know it is actually simply through guesswork.
That is why it is never as reliable as say the laws of physics. Suppose E.T., what is E.T.? Alien, extraterrestrial being, you heard of that? Alien. Suppose an alien comes over here and he is hovering at the back, hovering in the space at the back and he has been sent to observe Earth and to determine what is the population, what is the nature of people on Earth.
And he comes to, he comes on Earth to Perth and he is here and he is observing from behind. And then after observing, he observes for one hour from 11.30 to 12.30 and he goes back. And he says, actually we found that the people in Perth are mostly Indians and Indians, most of them are young.
Now, is that true? It is a valid observation, but it is an invalid extrapolation. It is a valid observation, but it is an invalid extrapolation. Why? Because you observe this play, observe a very small part of the Earth and for a very short amount of time.
Similarly, with the methodology of science, what we can observe is very limited. And that too, the universe is so large that what we observe over it is very, very small. All this is not meant to criticise science.
It is meant to contextualise science. The science is very powerful when we can do observable, repeatable experiments. But when it comes to things that happened long, long ago, science cannot do observable, repeatable experiments and that is why it is very speculative.
So, if we consider the fact that there is order in the universe right now, where did this order come from? The most reasonable explanation for the presence of order is a transcendental being who created order in nature, who created an orderly mind within us and who gives us the insight by which we can understand the order of nature. So, God is the most reasonable explanation for what we observe in the world. Can you go back to the previous slide? I conclude with this particular slide now.
In science there are two aspects, there is theory and there is experiment. And similarly, in spirituality there are two aspects, philosophy and religion. So, philosophy refers to the postulates.
So, for example, science tells us that every particle of matter attracts every other particle with a force of that is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance. This is a postulate, this is theory and we do experiments to find out whether it is true or not. So, philosophy offers us the postulates and religion involves the practises by which we can verify the theory.
So, for example, philosophy tells us that God exists and we are meant to live in harmony with God and religion gives us the practises by which we can live in harmony with God. And as I quoted from the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Health, science has found that if we live in harmony with God, we live healthier and we live happier. So, there is the experiment, there is the philosophy which gives us the theoretical aspect and religion is the practical aspect.
Now, both philosophy and religion are required. If both of them are not there, then it leads to problems. If there is only philosophy and no religion, then it just leads to speculation.
I think like this, you think like that. Some people say, I believe God is like this, I believe God is like that. There is no way to verify it, there is no way to experience it.
Then it becomes simply imagination, armchair speculation. On the other hand, if there is only religion and philosophy, then it can become simply sentimental. I believe this, you believe that.
Whatever you believe, we all can believe whatever we want. Or it can become fanaticism. Fanaticism means, my way is the only way.
If you are going to follow me, this is the way to God. Everyone else is going to go to hell. And there are super fanatical people who say, not only are you going to go to hell, we will help you get there faster.
So, this kind of fanaticism, we do see a lot in today’s world. This is because religion has been divorced from philosophy. Without understanding what the ultimate truths of life are, when people simply think, this is my way, and I want to follow this way, and everybody will follow this way.
So, when there is a proper balance of philosophy and religion together, then spirituality can become a very powerful means of individual and social transformation. It can actually help us to deal with stress, with negativity. It can infuse us with positive energy.
There are, all of us, we may have some negative emotions like anger, depression. Now, with all our advanced technology, the best technological gadgets that we may have, there is no medicine, no therapy, by which somebody gets angry, you just cool them down. Feeling angry? Take this pill.
Take this pill. Calm down. We can’t do that.
Why? Because emotions are inside us, they can’t be changed like that. With technology, with science, we can make things better. You know, Phillips has a slogan, let’s make things better.
So, science can change the outer world and make things better. But spirituality can make people better, can change us internally and make people better. Whatever stress, negativity, depression that we face, we can counter that through spirituality.
So, thus, science and spirituality both can be balanced together. In 2015, first time when I went to America, I spoke at a university on regulating our mental diet. After that, one student came to me and he said that just before this class, he was contemplating suicide.
He had been in a relationship and the girl had broken up with him, so he was broken down by that. And as he was contemplating suicide, he saw the poster of this programme and he came along. He said, let me go, something is within me, let me go and watch.
So, when he came for the programme, at that time, he said, now I have understood that actually, it’s not that I want to commit suicide. If there is negativity within me, there is a negative voice within me, just tell me, commit suicide, commit suicide. I said, yes, there are negative forces in us which we need to counter them.
I told him about the Bhagavad Gita. He is an American boy. I told him about the principles of yoga, especially Bhakti yoga.
And then every year, when I go to America, I meet him, talk with him. And he has become a serious, seriously studied the Bhagavad Gita. And in 2017, this year, when I went, I met him again, and he told me that again he faced a similar situation.
He was in a relationship and the girl sent him a text message saying that I am breaking up with you. And she didn’t want any contact with him. So, he says, I was again very distressed.
He said, I just went straight to my room, locked my door, pulled down the windows. And then, just he, just like we had Kirtan just now before the start of the class, he is a good musician. So, he picked up his violin and started singing the Hare Krishna mantra, just praying to Krishna.
And as he kept praying, singing, singing in a prayerful mood, he said, I sang continuously for six hours. And he said, I could actually feel the presence of God. I could feel strength.
I could feel joy. I could feel love. And the very experience that could have been shattering for me, became sublimating for me.
It happened because he had connected with God internally. So, he had the philosophical understanding that life ups and downs will come. And he had the religious process that he could practise musical mantra meditation.
And rather than becoming self-destructive, he became, he channelled his energy constructively. He grew spiritually. And in this way, he faced this negativity.
So, actually, whatever negativity, whatever fear, whatever stress we may have, that negative energy can be countered by our connection with God. So, science can make things better. Spirituality can make people better.
It can make us better. And understanding God, learning about God, discovering God is the discovery that can change our life forever. There are many discoveries that science have made, which have changed humanity in different ways.
But even with the most powerful energy that we have discovered, say nuclear energy, even the most powerful energy, such a nuclear energy that we have discovered, a nuclear bomb can destroy a whole city. But it cannot destroy one bad habit of one person. But if we discover God, if we connect with God, if we learn to devote ourselves to God, then our bad habits, our negativity, all that can be overcome.
And we can be permeated with positive energy. Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita at the start was overcome by negativity. He said, I can’t fight, I give up.
But by hearing the Bhagavad Gita, by understanding God’s existence, by understanding God’s benevolence, he became enthusiastic once again. He picked up his bow, he was ready to fight. Similarly, all of us have our bows.
We may not be fighting a physical war, but all of us have our bows. Sometimes life will make us discouraged. I can’t fight.
But if we understand the existence of God, not just as an intellectual, religious conception, but as a philosophical understanding, and then something which you practise and experience through the process of mantra meditation, the kirtan that we did through singing, through that, then whatever negativity we face in our life, by the connection with God, we will have the internal strength to face it and not just to go through it, but to grow through it. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke about, is God an invention or a discovery? Did man create God or did God create man? Some people say man created God because man feels fearful.
And that’s why we imagine that God will protect us. But we find that science has found that there is no better correlator of good mental health and overall happiness than religious faith. So if God is an invention, he’s a very good invention, not a bad invention.
But if God was simply an invention, the question remains unanswered, where did everything come from? The atheistic autobiography of the universe would be nothing existed because of nothing, nothing exploded because of nothing and gave rise to everything. It is spectacularly logical. So now science also, some people say religion operates on faith, science on facts, but science also operates on faith.
And there is an order in nature, which science tries to discover. Where did that order come from? F is equal to gm1m2 upon r square Newton discovered, but who made that equality? If the universe came by unguided natural forces, then why does the universe have an order? Why does we have a mind which thinks in an orderly way? And why does the order between the mind and nature correlate? So science discoveries are like finding the key that opens a locked door. But who made the door with the lock? Who made the key? That’s important to know.
So science cannot function if nature itself were not having an order in it. The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. And science can explain the laws of nature.
Why did the ball go for a sixer? It is not just because of the laws of gravity. The laws of gravity explain the mechanism, not the cause. So to ask, when we say that God is the order giver, order imparted, then we ask where did God come from? That is like asking what makes a circle circular? God is by definition the cause of all causes.
He exists outside the time domain, just as JK Rowling exists outside the Harry Potter stories. And then lastly, I talked about how God is not the explanation for the unexplainable, he is the explanation for explainability. And how can we prove existence? Science can strongly tell us something about things that are repeatable through inductive reasoning.
But for what happened long ago, science has to use abductive reasoning, which is guesswork, basically influenced by the first experience, like solving a mystery novel. And it cannot be conclusive. So we can use that same abductive reasoning to infer the existence of God, if we approach spirituality as a combination of philosophy and religion.
The philosophy tells us that God is the source of everything and we are meant to live in harmony with him. And religion gives us practises by which we can live in harmony with him. And when we do this, as science has found, we live healthier and happier.
And with all scientific advancement, we can make things better. We can fly and communicate through mobiles. But we cannot change negative emotions, we cannot overcome bad habits.
But that negative mentality and compulsive habits, they can all be overcome by connecting ourselves with God. So science can make things better, spirituality can make people better. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So are there any questions or comments? So why does God let evil happen? Why a two-month baby can die because of painful cancer? Was it karma? Yes. This is a very difficult question to deal with.
But let us start with the opposite extreme. People say that the presence of evil disproves the existence of God. Why would a good God allow evil to happen? So we could counter it this way, that why should we have any conception of good or bad at all? That if God did not exist, if there is nothing spiritual to life, if everything just happens by random chance, then why should we ask, why do bad things happen to good people? And we could turn around the question and ask, why should bad things not happen to good people? Why should there be any order in the universe at all? If Richard Dawkins is one of the most prominent atheists in the world, and he says that nature, it works blindly, pitilessly, indiscriminately.
So that means nature does not know what is good, what is bad. It just simply acts. Nature is amoral.
A coconut falls down from a tree. Now whether the coconut falls on the ground or the coconut falls on the head of a small baby and kills the baby, the coconut does not know anything. So now if we ourselves were simply products of nature, then why should we even have a conception of good or bad? The very fact that this is good, this is bad, this conception we have because normally good things happen to good people, normally bad things happen to bad people.
I put my hand in fire, it gets burnt. If I overeat, my stomach gets upset. So we normally see cause-effect correlation.
And when we don’t see that cause-effect correlation, then the question comes up, why does this happen? So actually the conception of evil itself will have no meaning if we don’t have a transcendental source of good and bad. It is God. Having said that, now why do bad things happen to good people, especially say for a small child? And it is very difficult to understand this from a this life perspective.
See once we see cause-effect correlation, we also understand that there is time lag. So sometimes a person may start smoking at the age of 15, but they may have good health till the age of 50. And at 50, doctor says you have got cancer.
You have got advanced lung cancer. You have got only a few months to live. So here the correlation, the distance between cause and effect was 35 years.
If I put my hand in fire, it is instantaneous. If I overeat, that means the result is after 6 hours. So basically cause and effect can be separated by different time durations in different situations.
So activities that we do are like seeds that we sow. So crops if we sow, they grow after 3-4 months. If we sow a fruit tree, it may take 4 years.
It may take 15 years. Some trees may take 25 years. So just as different seeds fructify after different time durations, similarly different actions give results after different time durations.
So we at our core, the Bhagavad Gita explains, are spiritual beings. We are souls. For us, the body is simply like a dress.
It’s an external covering that we acquire. So sometimes the distance between cause and effect, that may extend beyond one lifetime. So the result of some actions that we have done in the past, may come in this lifetime.
Or some actions that we may do in this lifetime, they may give a result in the next lifetime. So it’s not that evil is happening in the sense that something malevolent is out there which is victimising innocent people. Rather, there is simply the cause-effect principle which acts.
And this cause-effect principle is sometimes delayed in time duration. And that’s why sometimes it may appear the child is innocent and the child is distressed. But that distress is the effect of certain actions that have been done in the past.
This does not mean that we be uncaring or insensitive. We actually, it’s our duty to care for the child and offer the best care that is possible. But sometimes, if that doesn’t work out, we understand that there are higher factors which are working.
Is it true that happy people live 9 years longer? No, it’s not happy people who live 9 years longer. It is rather people who believe in God. That’s what the survey I quoted.
They live around 7 years longer. And there are different surveys. This is a meta-study which suggests this.
Now, do happy people live longer? There are different studies which talk about different things in this case. It is true that if we have positive emotions within us, then those generate positive hormones within us. And those positive hormones promote health.
Exact duration is difficult to tabulate because happiness itself is difficult to compute. There are some European countries which, I think it was last time in Netherlands and Sweden, I think, they topped in World Happiness Survey. But then these two countries also have the world’s highest consumption per capita of antidepressants.
And people are taking antidepressants. Are they really happy? So, happiness is a very subjective conception. What we can see is, like what was good, what was studied on by Kani was that we have tangible religious commitment.
People go to a religious programme, a temple, a church, a mosque once a week. And what is their longevity? So, happiness becomes very subjective. But if we have tangible spiritual commitment, and then we can look at tangible parameters such as lifespan, then we can have a more reliable correlation between the two.
So, how can we enhance our faith in God apart from chanting and reading spiritual books? The most important thing is to associate with those who are devoted to God. Our desires, our intelligence, and our disposition develops based on our association. Our desires are not just linear, they are triangular.
About a year ago, I think, there was this new video game that came, Pokemon Go. Now, when the video game came new, okay, so many video games keep coming. This is also a new game that came.
But then how it picked up was some kids started playing, playing, playing, playing, continuously playing, playing, playing. And other kids say, what is this? I want to know about it. They started playing, and they started playing.
And so, just coming to know about the game did not lead to so much desire for the game. But seeing somebody else playing that game created that desire. Oh, you’re playing, you’re so busy in it, you’re so engrossed, I want to know what this is, I want to play.
So, our desires are not just simply linear. It’s not just by seeing something we get the desire, they are triangular. By seeing someone else playing that game, we get the desire to play that game.
That’s why advertisements don’t just describe the product, or depict the product. They show celebrities consuming or enjoying the product. Oh, this sports star, this cricketer, this movie star, he or she is enjoying using this product, I also want to use it.
So, for us, if you want to develop our faith in God, yes, we can chant his name, we can study books about him. That is very good. But the most important thing is to associate with those who have faith.
By seeing their faith, by seeing their life, by talking with them, by understanding from them, that triangularity of our desires will be tapped. And association is the single strongest way of developing our faith in God. Our spiritual books such as the Vedas, are they philosophy or are they experiment? They are both.
The Bhagavad Gita says, In 9.2 it is said that, this is the king of knowledge. It gives knowledge about the highest reality. But it is not just abstract or theoretical knowledge.
So, that knowledge that is given, that is the philosophy. But along with that knowledge, a process is given. The process by which we can realise that knowledge, we can experience that knowledge to be true.
So, in that sense, it is both philosophy and religion. So, if God is the cause of all causes, then is God the cause of the negativity in humans also? There are two different points over here. See, God is the cause of all causes.
He is not the cause of all effects. There is a difference. That means, say, if there is a light over here and I put my hand over here.
Now, if my hand is over here, there is a shadow will be formed over here. Now, is the shadow caused by that light? We could say, well, yes and no. At one level, no, because the light is only giving an illumination.
But because this object is coming in between, and that object is what is causing the shadow. So, the light is not the cause of the darkness. But without the light, we would not have that conception of darkness because everything would be totally dark.
So, in that sense, without God, nothing would be possible. So, even negativity would not exist. But the conception of negativity as contrasted with positivity, that exists because people turn away from God.
So, to the extent we turn towards the light, we see light. To the extent we turn away from the light, we see shadow. So, similarly, the negativity that is present in people is because of their disconnection with God.
And based on disconnection with God, the more they are disconnected, the more the negativity comes within them and the negativity flows out from them. And the more we become connected with God, the more positivity will come within us. If everything is governed by the law of karma, then are the people who are doing bad things, such as the Taliban is killing people, are they also a part of the circle? That means, are they doing a part of punishing those who are wrongdoers? So, will they be punished or are they simply being instruments? Yes, this is a good question, thoughtful question.
Here we have to understand that karma is very complex and the law of karma can use different people to do different things. But whether those people think that we are being instruments or not, that is important. That means, let us say, if A kills B and then as a reaction A is to be killed in future.
The law of karma is complex. I am just giving a simple example to illustrate this. So, A kills B and A is supposed to be killed.
And in the future, C and A get into a fight and C kills A. Now, C, now the death of A, we can say is a reaction because A killed B in the past. But C was not thinking that I am giving the karmic reaction to A. C was just angry with whatever was a particular issue and C did not because of that. So, we have to see that actually when people do something wrong, violence or crime or murder, they are responsible for their actions.
They are responsible for their actions and they will be punished for that. Now, what about their victims? We can see that from two perspectives. From this lifetime’s perspective and from a multi lifetime perspective.
From this lifetime’s perspective, they are innocent victims. And society or the world’s governments need to come together to prevent such victimisation of innocent people. That is the meaning of the rule of law or traditionally what we can call as dharma.
Dharma is religious duty. The word dharma has many meanings. One meaning is proper duty.
So, when a person is suffering because of some wrongdoing, because somebody else has done something wrong, then we are not meant to judge that person and say that because you did this, you must be suffering because of some past life action. No, from this life’s perspective, they are victims and they need to be protected. But if for some reason the protection doesn’t come, then they accept that, okay, this is what, I must have done something in the past because of which I am getting the reaction.
So, the point which I am making is that there is what happens to us, whatever Goya does to us, that is the result of our past karma. But past karma is not the only thing to be considered. Our present dharma is also to be considered.
What is my duty right now? When Ravan abducted Sita, Ram did not think, you know, Sita must have done some karma because of which she got abducted. So, let her stay abducted. No, he fought a war to protect her and to regain her.
When Draupadi was dishonoured, the Pandavas did not think, you know, it must be her past karma. No, not at all. So, when we are interacting with others, we have to consider what is the present dharma.
What am I meant to do? And we have to act best on that, based on that. But if sometimes, despite the best efforts, some bad things do happen, then we understand this is the result of past karma. So, the understanding of karma is not meant to make us hard-hearted.
It is meant to make us clear-headed. Hard-hearted means we just do not feel anything for anyone. We do not feel for other people’s suffering.
No, we want to be not just sympathetic, we want to be empathic to whoever is in distress, as much as is our capacity. But at the same time, we want to be clear-headed. That means we should not become resentful, negative, pessimistic, when we see bad things happening.
Because there is a higher level of order that is present in the universe. So, are there any other questions? So, what is God? Is he imagination or is he a person? The whole talk was about how God is not an imagination. He is a reality who is to be discovered.
Now, is he a person? Normally, when we think about the word person, we think about a person like you and me. Say, now you are present in this programme, you cannot be at home, say, watching some cricket match or whatever. When we are persons, we are finite beings.
So, we are at one place, we cannot be at another place. So, we may extrapolate this conception of finiteness and we say, how can God be a person? God is supposed to be omnipresent, he is supposed to be omnipotent. He cannot be a person.
We may think like this. However, God is different from us in that he is a spiritual being. He is not a material being.
As a spiritual being, he can have a form and still he can potentially be present everywhere. His form does not limit him. So, we are all persons and where does our personality come from? It has to come from some source.
So, if the source did not have personality, how would we have personality? So, our source, supreme source, that is God, he has personality and that is how we have personality. But his personality is different from ours in the sense that he is unlimited whereas we are limited. So, we are limited not because we have a form, but because our form is material.
This tree, this house is there and this room is there. Suppose a bomb explodes over here and then this whole building collapses. Now, the debris that will result from this building collapsing, would that debris be limited or unlimited? Yeah? Would it be limited or unlimited? Yeah, unlimited.
So, this room has a form, so it is limited. But when it is destroyed, whatever remains will also be limited. So, it’s not that form or personality cause limitation.
It is matter which by nature is limited. God himself is spiritual and that’s why he is unlimited. Many of you may know the story of Krishna and Damodar Leela.
Mother Yashoda tried to tie Krishna and she kept tying, she kept tying, she kept tying and no matter how much rope she got, it was never enough. Why? Because he is God and he can have a finite form and still be infinite. When Mother Yashoda asked Krishna to open her mouth, open his mouth, she saw the whole universe within him.
So, his form is not like our form. His personality is not like our personality. He is a transcendental person.
So, do you have any other questions? Any of you, how much time do we have? So, are there any other questions remaining? How much time do we have? Please stop. 10 minutes. Are there any other questions you would like to ask? Okay, here is a question.
Do we have explanation of the creation of universe with Vedic science with proofs? When we talk about Vedic science, what do we actually mean first of all? There is material knowledge and there is spiritual knowledge. And the primary gift that the Vedic literature, the Bhagavata and others offer us is spiritual knowledge. They offer us knowledge about how to, how to rise beyond this world to the spiritual world.
So, that is the most important knowledge. We don’t have to position science and scripture, science and Vedas, they are not competitors. Science gives us knowledge about how to function in this world.
The Vedas give us knowledge about why to function in this world. What is the purpose of life? What is it that we are meant to ultimately achieve in life? So, the Vedas do describe a process of creation. But the important thing is, the Vedas primary gift is not to describe, to describe how the creation takes place.
Its primary purpose is to describe how the purpose of the creation can be fulfilled. So, in the Vedas there is material knowledge, there is spiritual knowledge. The most important gift of the Vedas is the spiritual knowledge.
The knowledge about how to raise our consciousness and how to find happiness within, in our connection with God. That is something which every one of us can experience. Of course, there are many scientists who have also done some research.
Dr. David Brian Wolfe is at Florida State University. He did a research on the power of mantra chanting. And he found that actually people who chant mantras regularly, the negativity within them is far lesser than the negativity among other people.
People are able to overcome depression and give up addictions. So, there are, as far as the potency of the spiritual knowledge is concerned, there is tremendous potency and that potency is something which every one of us can experience. We don’t have to accept it on faith from anyone.
We can ourselves experience it. In the concept of karma works, what is the role of prayers? Yes, karma is a mechanical process of law of action and reaction. God is not the cause of the system.
God exists beyond the system and he oversees the system. But he, the purpose of karma is not simply punishment or not even disciplining. It is actually a reformation.
And if somebody is willing to reform, then there is no need for the punishment to come. So, even in our judicial system, if say someone is, if someone is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, but in the jail they behave well, the sentence can be decreased to 5 years. So, similarly, the principle of karma is that to action we will get a reaction.
But there is a purpose. It is not mechanical. This action will have to be on this reaction.
What is the purpose of it all? That is important. So, the purpose is to help us live more in harmony with our essential spiritual nature, to become good human beings, to become godly human beings. To the extent we do that, the law of karma does not need to operate.
So, I will give an example to how, explain how God can intervene amidst the principle of karma. Suppose there is a teacher, suppose there is a student who has not done the homework and the teacher is very strict. The teacher is, mother knows that the teacher is going to punish the child.
So, show your hand, stick is going to, stick is going to beat the child. So, then the mother does not want the child to be beaten. At the same time, the mother does not want the child to be lethargic, to be irresponsible.
So, therefore, what the mother does is, when the child is going to school, the mother puts a nice thick glove on the child’s hand and the child goes to school. Have you done your homework? No. Come here, show your hand.
So, the stick hits, but it does not hurt because the glove is protecting. So, the mother is like God, Krishna. The teacher is like material nature and we are like that errant child.
So, by our karma, by not doing our homework, we are supposed to get some punishment. But if we pray to Krishna, not just pray to Krishna, but we absorb ourselves in the remembrance of Krishna. If we absorb ourselves in Krishna, then the result of that is, that absorption becomes like a glow for us.
The distresses of the world may come, but they won’t hurt us that much because our consciousness will be absorbed in Krishna. Many times when problems come, it is not just the problem that troubles us, it is our mind which goes on a hyper-imaginative drive. Oh, this will go wrong, that will go wrong, that will go wrong.
That troubles us much more. It is not just reality that hurts us, it is resentment of reality that hurts us much more. So, if we are supposed to go for a picnic and just before the picnic, we get a flu and fall sick.
Now, getting a flu is not very painful. We just have to be in bed, we feel a little weak, but our mind is beating. Why did this happen? All my friends are enjoying.
Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? And that resentment that I got flu, that hurts me more than the flu also. But if we connect ourselves with Krishna, if we absorb ourselves in Krishna, then that resentment doesn’t come because the mind gets a fulfilling engagement. So, by the intervention of Krishna, even if some karmic reactions come upon us, they get minimised and that’s how Krishna exists above the world, above the law of karma and he can intervene in response to our prayers to minimise whatever reactions we might be getting.
Why are there different religions? Who is the correct God? Are all there one God in different terms? Can you believe in more than one religion? Yeah, good questions. There is one supreme being. By definition, you cannot have two supreme beings.
Supreme means the greatest. So, there is only one God. Ekam sat vipra bhavdha The Vedas say that one absolute truth is known by different names and different traditions.
So, we can say that there is a top of a mountain and there are different paths to go up to the top of the mountain. The top of the mountain is like God consciousness, is attainment of God. The bottom of the mountain is like material consciousness where all of us are at present and different religions are meant to help us rise from our present material consciousness towards God consciousness.
So, is it that all religions are right? Well, not exactly. Can I say that if I am at the bottom of the mountain, all paths are going to the top of the mountain? No, some paths may be going away from the mountain also. So, we have to see the result.
Is a particular religion, is it elevating people’s consciousness? Is it actually transforming people from being materialistic to becoming more spiritual? From becoming lovers of worldly things to becoming lovers of God? If that transformation is happening, then that means that religion is a path by which people can rise upwards towards spiritual consciousness. So, why are there different religions? Because different people have different mentalities. Different people have different cultures, different mindsets, different backgrounds.
So, the path up the mountain is customised according to the people who are there at the foothills, at the bottom of that particular path. So, in different religions, which are revealed at different times, they give people different ways to rise up to God. Now, whether people are actually rising up to God or not, that is something which has to be individually seen.
Sometimes religion becomes just like a social designation. One of my friends is a Bhagavad Gita scholar and author. He is from a Jew background.
So, once he was talking with his family, his uncle and his aunt and other extended family about his understanding of the Bhagavad Gita. So, his uncle asked him suspiciously, are you trying to convert me? He said, I didn’t know that you belong to any religion. His uncle was an atheist.
He says, I am a Jew. I am an atheist, but I am an atheist Jew. Now, the first commandment of Judaism is that you love thy Lord with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy might.
Now, if somebody doesn’t believe in God, then what kind of Jews are they? So, Judaism here is no longer a spiritual path. It has simply become a social designation. So, what that means is that all people who follow any particular religious path or who belong to a particular religion, that does not mean all of them are following a particular religious path.
They just nominally belong to that religion. Yes, that means this is a path up the mountain. So, if somebody is born in a Christian family, you could say they are at the bottom of the path, the Christian path is going to take them up.
Somebody is born in a Muslim family, somebody is born in a Hindu family, somebody is born in a Sikh family. They are all born at the bottom of the mountain from where there is a path up. Now, whether they are going up or not, that is up to them.
Some people may not be going up at all. Some people may actually be, some people may just be at the bottom of the mountain and just circle around the bottom of the mountain and pull everyone down. Say, your path is wrong, your path is wrong, your path is wrong.
And are you going up? So, sometimes some people just get caught in competitive religion. My religion is better than your religion, your religion is better than my religion. Whether if it is really better, show it through your actions.
You show how devoted to God you are. And if you are really devoted to God, people will see that. But religion can, if religion becomes just a social designation or a tool in power games, in power politics, then that religion is not actually religion.
So, when say people say that they are committing violence in the name of religion, there are terrorists who kill themselves and kill others in the name of religion, what are they doing? Actually, they are not worshipping God. They are simply having their own conception of God, which somehow they have extrapolated from their holy books. And they want power, they want prestige and often they are misled by their beliefs that okay, if you die and you kill, you will go to heaven and you will enjoy.
This is, as I said earlier, religion without philosophy. So, we cannot absolutely say that all religions are paths to God. All religions were originally meant to be paths to God.
But today, whether that religion is taking people to God or not, that is up to individuals to see. Whether the individual follower is worshipping God or not, that is important. So, once a person went to God and he said, oh God, I have purchased this lottery ticket.
It’s worth 50 lakh rupees. So, if I get this lottery, I will give you 25 lakhs. And then he went to that, eagerly went on the day when the lottery ticket was announced and he found that he had won the prize.
But then he saw that he had won the second prize, which is worth 25 lakhs. And then he went to God in the temple and he said, oh God, you are so clever. You took your share beforehand only.
So, here people are not approaching God as an object of devotion. Here, they are treating God, which this can be for any reason. It can be a Hindu, it can be a Muslim, it can be a Christian, whatever.
Here, as a business, I just said in the business, we can try to manipulate and try to get as much as possible and give as less as possible. That is what people are doing. So, religion can be a social identity and religion can be a spiritual path.
So, originally, religion was meant to be a spiritual path. And if people are practising that religion as a spiritual path, then through different religions, people can rise up to the top of the mountain. But we have to see whether they are actually rising up the top of the mountain.
And if people are practising the process of religion with philosophy and with practical application of the religious practises, then they will rise to the top of the mountain and then they can attain God. So, thank you very much. Hare Krishna.