Love may be unscientific but is it unreal?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you at the lotus feet of Shraddha Arunachandran and today I’ll be discussing on a topic which will address how we reconcile science and spirituality in our own lives.
So, love may be unscientific but is it unreal? So, the basic theme which I’ll be taking is that actually we are all human beings on a search for knowledge. We are not scientists per se nor are we spiritualists per se. We are essentially human beings on a quest for knowledge.
And science can offer us some knowledge, spirituality can offer us some knowledge. And we as human beings progress when we are open to knowledge from whichever branch comes to us as long as that knowledge is valid and valuable. So, the title for this talk is based on a quote from Einstein.
He says, gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. What he means by that is that Einstein was one of the greatest scientists of the last century and he recognised the power of science. At the same time he was candid enough to recognise also the scope of science.
It has certain things it could explain and certain things, he says, how on earth can you explain in terms of physics and chemistry so important biological phenomena as first love. And it’s not just first love, it’s love in general. Now, we may say to some extent that whenever we experience any emotions, there are certain chemicals associated with it.
That’s perfectly fine. But those chemicals themselves don’t comprise those emotions. Like those chemicals, certain serotonin or certain other hormones are secreted in the brain when we feel certain emotions.
And there is an association between the emotions that we experience and the chemical secretion that is there in the brain. But that association is basically a correlation. It is not reduction.
By what do I mean, correlation and reduction? Say, you know, if we go to meet a relative and they have some small child in their house and we want to have some fun with that child. So, you tickle the belly of that child. When you tickle the belly, the child may start laughing.
Now, if the child starts laughing, is that laughter happiness? Well, you could say at one level it is happiness, but at another level it is not. If the laughter caused by tickling were really happiness and the goal of all of our lives is to become happy, then all of us could get a perpetual tickling machine. And the quest for happiness could be equated with the quest for a perpetual tickling machine.
Want to be happy? Just tickle yourself, tickle yourself and be happy. So, there is a physical sensation which produces a physical reaction. So, laughter and happiness are correlated.
But laughter itself is not happiness. The physical expression of laughter is a result of the internal experience of happiness. And in some cases, the physical reaction of laughter can be triggered simply by some physical stimulus like tickling.
And there is no real inner experience of happiness. In crowd control, sometimes there are different ways in which police try to control crowd. So, now they are trying to see if they could have something called laughing gas.
So, you have agitated, they are rallying and they are about to go rampage and just send a squirt of gas. They all start laughing and they stop. Now, their anger has not gone away, but biologically they are forced to just laugh and then they just get distracted.
So, they are not happy. So, the point which I am making here is that just as there is a physical event or a physical occurrence that is laughter, which is normally correlated with happiness internally. But happiness is not just a physical event of laughter.
Similarly, there is some chemical secretion that happens when we go through various emotions including love. But love itself is not just a chemical secretion. There is a correlation between the two, but just as physical laughter is an outer expression of something happening internally.
Similarly, chemical secretion is also an outer expression of something happening internally. And what is that internal that happens? We may say actually there is nothing internal. Chemicals are there.
However, let’s look at how science goes about explaining things. So, science basically operates by looking for material explanations for material phenomena. That is the operational principle of science.
So, last year I was invited to Cambridge to give a talk on science and spirituality. So, while going along there, we passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling. In front of him or some people say on him.
Whichever way it is. Now, it is probably not that tree. It is a descendant of that tree.
But that place is like a pilgrimage place for scientists. This is the place where Einstein and when Newton got his great inspiration. Now, if you look at that place, Newton in his own life, he believed in God.
But much of his life he spent in trying to understand God. And he would say that, when he would make a scientific discovery, he would say, Oh father, I think thy thoughts after thee. So, he saw his scientific discoveries as spiritual insights into the way God thinks.
God has thought through in this world and how he has made fashion in the world. At the same time, although he believed in God, when he was looking for an explanation, what made this apple fall? He didn’t say at that time that God made the apple fall. He acknowledged God, but at that point he was looking for a material explanation for a material phenomenon.
What is the material mechanism that makes this fruit fall? And he came to that explanation as gravity. Which is, as far as it goes, it is a very valuable explanation. And it led to the tremendous development of science and especially of technology.
So, science looks for material explanations for material phenomena. But at the same time, science cannot tell us anything about any non-material reality. Whether anything non-material exists or doesn’t exist, how it exists, what its nature is.
All this is beyond the scope of science. Because science is not looking for that at all. So, suppose I am in a house and something has been stolen in the house.
Something is misplaced or something is missing. I decide this house will always be locked. So, whatever is lost, it must be lost somewhere here itself.
If I am not going to go out of the house, if I am not looking outside the house, if everything is dark and I am looking with my torch and I am looking inside the house and there are no windows, it’s all sealed like a cellar, I don’t look outside. Now, if I am only looking inside the house and I have a torch which only shows me inside the house, then I cannot make any statement about what exists outside the house. If I say nothing exists outside the house, how do I know? Now, I am not looking there nor does my torch show anything over there.
So, science approaches the world of matter is where we will look for explanations. We will look for explanations for everything at the material level. And all the instruments that science uses is like a torch which shows us inside the room itself.
Now, if some astronauts are in a space balloon and they are inside the balloon and they are looking with a torch inside the balloon or inside the spacecraft and their torch is not showing anything outside. Now, can they make a statement of what exists outside the balloon? At that stage, they can’t make any statement at all. So, Carl Sagan, he made a famous series of documentaries called the Cosmos.
And he starts that by saying, it is very insightful in its own ways. But he starts by stating that the cosmos was all that existed, the cosmos is all that exists and the cosmos is all that will ever exist. Now, this is not a scientific statement.
This is an ideological statement. He is an atheist and he has a right to his belief, whatever his belief is. The point which I am making is that science, science, because it looks for material explanations for material phenomena, it cannot tell us whether there is anything non-material existing or not.
It may, it may not. But if I am looking only for material explanations for material phenomena, I cannot make any statement about any non-material. If I make that statement, then that is not a scientific conclusion.
It is a personal opinion. Everyone can have their personal opinions. But their personal opinions are not science.
The two are very different things. Now, moving on, Karl Popper, who is a famous philosopher of science, and he said, how does science work? Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification. So, what does oversimplification mean? That means, when we look at the world around us, there are so many phenomena coming in, so many information coming in through senses.
So, science decides, we will look at certain phenomena. So, at the start of the scientific age, science decided to focus on it. There are what they call as primary properties and secondary properties.
So, primary properties are those which are measurable. Length, height, mass, speed. And in secondary properties, science included colour, taste, beauty, fragrance.
And science focused primarily on the primary qualities. Or on the primal actually, almost exclusively. And in the study of primary qualities, we came to tremendous levels of information processing and manipulation of matter.
At the same time, in the scientific method, the secondary knowledge, what is called as secondary properties, they are left aside. So, two simple examples. Some of us may use a software like Photoshop for designing some images, some posters.
And in those images, the software may tell how much percentage of what colour is there. 17% red over here, 17% yellow, 18% black, 40% white. It can give precise percentage, far more than what the human eye can itself perceive.
At the same time, as we are designing the cover image, can the best software tell us, now the image looks beautiful. No matter how sophisticated the software becomes, the software can tell us the colour composition. But the software cannot tell us the aesthetic features of the combination of the colours.
That is something which is also real. If we look at the world around us, say after this class you have prasad. Don’t say there is prasad.
But suppose there is a gulab jamun. Now, if there is a gulab jamun, or there is some dessert, some delicious item. Now, are we interested in its length, breadth, height? No, isn’t it? If it is a delicious food item, we are interested in its taste.
If we consider in the way we experience life, yes, length, breadth, height are secondary. They are important. But when we experience life, most of the emotions that we experience are in relationship to what science considers as secondary properties.
So, when Einstein is saying that science cannot explain why people fall in love, what it means is, love is an emotion that is experienced in relationship to what science calls as secondary qualities. We like the looks of a person, we like the personality of somebody, we like the features of somebody, we like the character traits of somebody, whatever it is, specifically. But now, love is a very real phenomenon.
In fact, it is a driving reality, which makes people do whatever they are doing. Just yesterday, I gave a talk on dealing with fear. So, I am writing a book on this.
So, I was looking at what are the common fears that people have. So, some of the modern fears, one of the fears is the fear of terrorists. Another modern fear is the fear of rejection.
If I develop a relationship with someone and that person leaves me, rejects me, what will happen to me? Now, when we are relating with each other, the two people are trying to form a code with each other or date each other, they are trying to develop a relationship, then they would like to know, does the other person really love me or the other person just acting to get something out of me. Now, with all our scientific advancement, can we get, we have a thermometer, we have a barometer, can we get a love-o-metre? Before getting to form a relationship, we get a love-o-metre, put them in their hearts. Does this person really love me? Now, not only is it technologically not possible, it is conceptually not possible.
Technologically, we may be able to find out, in my presence, does this person’s heart beat faster? Already a person’s heart may beat fast, but why is that beating fast? Maybe that’s because they just want some sensual pleasure from me. Is it because of genuine affection? We don’t know that. So, love is a very real experience in our life and at the same time, if we look at the scientific world view, especially when the scientific world view is assumed to explain all of reality.
Science has a particular way of looking at the world and it experiences and explains a particular part of the world in incredibly powerful ways. But some people assume that science can explain everything about everything. When that assumption is made, that is where the problem comes.
So, from the scientific world view, actually, love is something which is non-existent because it is not measurable. It is not quantifiable. How do I quantify it in terms of mathematics? I can’t.
And yet, it is real. It is what every human heart beats for. So, there is much to reality which is non-explainable by a method which relies only on material explanations for material phenomena.
So, in proper sense, it is systematic oversimplification. What we do is, we take the complex reality, we filter it and reduce that. Okay, among the complex reality, we are going to focus only on what we consider primary properties.
And then we analyse them in phenomenal ways. But we leave out a lot of other things. So, now, Steven Weinberg is a prominent scientist.
Although he is an atheist, he also acknowledges what happens. The more comprehensible the universe becomes, the more it also seems pointless. What does he mean by this pointless? Actually, the more we understand, this is why the apples fall down, there is a law of gravity.
Why do planets move around in their orbits? Oh, that is explainable by Einstein’s concept of space-time or relativity physics. Why are fundamental particles behaving the way they are? Oh, that’s because of quantum physics. Yes, we make sense of more and more of the universe in its various aspects.
But in totality, what is the purpose of life? What is the point of it all? The scientific world view doesn’t offer us any ultimate answers. Why are we existing? Oh, we are just stardust come alive. And we are alive for some time and then we die and that’s the end of it.
This is a profoundly disempowering and disorienting world view. The idea that our life has no purpose. This is completely counterintuitive, not just to the way we live in ordinary life, it is also counterintuitive to the way science functions in itself.
Science tries to make sense of things. What makes the apple fall? Oh, it’s because of gravity. What makes the cosmic bodies move? Oh, it’s Einstein’s relativity physics.
What makes me want to understand all this? There is no meaning to that. There is a major inconsistency over here. So, what happens if we just take the scientific vision to be complete? Then we end up with islets of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness.
This part makes sense, this part makes sense. What about the whole picture? Oh, no sense. How can that be? And if you see how scientific knowledge is advanced, it is advanced by when something doesn’t make sense.
Rather than saying that it is insensible, we try to expand our frame of reference. Francis Bacon said that the world should not be reduced to fit into our understanding. Our understanding should be expanded to take in the world as it is.
So, science helps us to look at particular aspects of the world and helps us understand those aspects in remarkably precise ways. At the same time, there is much more to science, much more to the world and much more to our life beyond what science can explain. And here I would like to differentiate between science and scientism.
Scientism is an ideology which holds that science alone can explain everything about everything. And actually scientism itself is unscientific because there is no scientific experiment to prove that science alone can explain everything about everything. There is no experiment for that.
So, there are ways in which we experience life. As I said, love is the emotion which we experience. And yet, we cannot explain it simply in terms of neurochemical phenomena.
There is something more to life beyond what we experience, what we observe and analyse through the world of science. I conclude with two points and then we can have a few questions. Einstein himself was very conflicted about the implications of scientism.
He said that if we consider science itself as providing complete explanation for everything, then the logical implication of that would be that none of us have any free will because matter operates according to the laws of nature. And the laws of nature simply function mechanically. So, if I have this clicker and if I drop this, I won’t drop it.
But if I were to drop it, it has no free will whether to fall or not to fall. It is going to fall automatically. Why? Because if this matter is going to obey the laws of nature, laws of nature which govern matter.
Now, if I come to one of you, I slap you. Suddenly, hey, why did you slap me? My brain chemicals told me to slap you. Then you will slap me back.
My brain chemicals told me to slap you. So, whenever we ask anyone, why did you do that? When we ask, why did you do that? It implies that the person had the capacity to choose to not do that. And yet they did that, so we are asking what was the reason you did it? So, Einstein recognised that if we assume the scientific, not scientific, the scientistic world view, from scientism we get the adjective scientistic.
Scientistic world view is that science has all answers to all questions. If we take that world view, then the Nazis who killed 6 to 8 million Jews and 6 million other people, no, they are not responsible at all. Because they are just programmed to act in that way.
But, can we assume that whatever they do, they are simply programmed to act like that? All relationships would crumble if there would be no conception of freedom. We ask someone, why did you do that? I am programmed to do that. How would you have a relationship then? All systems of justice would collapse.
So, criminal would ask, why did you kill someone? I am programmed to do like that. They will say, I am programmed to sentence you to death now. We function, our very foundation of existence is based on the assumption of free will.
Even if somebody says, I have no free will. Actually, the rejection of free will is a declaration of free will. When I say I have no free will, that means I am using my free will to say I have no free will.
So, actually all of us have some amount of free will. It may be limited, it is limited, but we do have free will. So, the scientific world view, if that is made into the only world view, that is claimed to explain everything, then we end up with a very distorted picture of reality.
In which, we understand certain things, but a lot is left out. Our emotions are left out, our heart is left out, our spiritual side is left out. So, if we consider reality to be like a three-story building.
A three-story building is the level 1, level 2, level 3. So, level 1 is physical reality, is the body. Level 2 is the mind. So, emotions are present over there.
Level 3 is the soul, a spiritual reality. So, science, suppose you had some torch which operated based on gravity, function based on gravity, that means the torch is pointing ahead, the torch is pointing down, it becomes bright. The torch points ahead, it becomes a little dim.
Torch points up, it goes blank. So, science is a torch like that. Now, what is there on level 1? We can see it in phenomenally clear ways.
We can see at the level 1, this works like this, this works like this, we can understand it very well. But, if you point it up, the torch goes blank. That means, if you try to understand the emotions, not just in the way they manifest in the brain, but what they actually are.
The mind itself, if you try to understand, it just blurs. If you try to go beyond any spiritual reality, it just becomes blank. So, reality is like a three-storey building.
And science offers us tremendous understanding of the level 1. But, there is level 2 and there is level 3. And those are aspects of our life which are left aside. So, love as an emotion is not at the level 1. It is at level 2. In fact, it is at level 3 if you go and understand the spiritual side. Love as a longing of the heart, it comes from the soul.
And this is also real. Therefore, if we understand what is the scope of science and what is the scope of spirituality. So, science answers questions about how.
How did this apple fall down? How did planets move around? Science answers questions about mechanisms. About mechanisms. How do things function? But, when it comes to why, why do things exist at all? The Science Magazine, on their 125th anniversary, they made a list of 125 questions for which science doesn’t have answers.
So, one of the questions is, why does the universe exist at all? Why does something exist instead of nothing? Where did the universe come from? Second question is, where does consciousness come from? No. Actually, sometimes people say that the more computers develop, the more robots develop, they will be able to do everything that humans can do. Actually, in terms of physical information processing, already computers can do better than what humans can do.
But, in terms of experiencing emotions, they do very different things. A computer can play chess and it can defeat a world chess champion. But, does the computer experience any joy of winning? No.
It is the winner, it is the computer maker who experiences joy. My computer won the match. So, actually, the computer itself does not experience anything.
So, rather than asking the question that, can computers do that which humans can do? We can turn the question around and ask, why do humans need to be conscious at all? Computers can do information processing, computers can play chess, and as the computers advance, they will be able to play better chess. But, actually, they are not playing chess at all. They are simply doing number processing.
Now, at the level of digital logic, 0, 1, 0, 1 states are being changed at a very fast level. So, if information processing alone were the purpose of life, then machines can already do it better than humans, and they will be able to do it better than humans. And we, our brains, will also be able to do information processing.
So, why did we need consciousness at all? Why do we need to experience emotions at all? Information processing can be done without any consciousness involved over there. So, if I am lost, and I ask Google, which is the way to the nearest gas station? Google may just give an answer, but for me, I am worried, how will I go? So, this is the gas station, I feel relief. Google doesn’t feel any relief.
So, information processing can be done without any emotional involvement in it. But for us, emotions are what give life to life. They are what make life worth living, worth experiencing.
So, there is an aspect of reality that is beyond information processing. And that aspect is what is addressed by the spiritual side. So, when we talk about spiritual growth, what it means is, why do we exist at all? Why do we have consciousness at all? Why does the world exist at all? So, for functional knowledge, for operating in the world, we can, and today we need, to use science as a tool.
So, we are using this mic right now, this is being streamed on Facebook. So, we are all using science. And as far as the tool for functioning in the world is concerned, for operating in the material level is concerned, science is very powerful and credit needs to be given where it is due.
At the same time, if we assume that this level of reality is the only reality, then it becomes a serious problem. If you can imagine, there is a higher reality. There are my emotions and there is my spiritual side.
And actually, it is this spiritual side which helps us to change. Last slide. Science can make things better.
Spirituality can make people better. People better means that, like earlier I talked about freedom. See, all of us, we know that I have certain habits which I want to give up.
I have certain habits which I want to develop. So, if at every new year, people make new year resolutions. Last year, I gave a, at the start of the year, I gave a TV talk.
So, I was quoting how most of the new year resolutions that people make, the resolutions are not new. They are made in the previous year. At the time of new year resolution, can science make a pill which will increase will power and enable people to stick to their resolutions.
It is something very different. Yes, you can make some pills by which certain aspects of, say if a person is excessively prone to depression or excessive negative emotions, those can be calmed down. Tranquillizers are there.
But beyond that, consciousness and the emotions that we experience, they are of a categorically different nature. And spirituality actually helps us to understand who we are, what we are meant to live for, and how we can achieve the purpose of life, how we can find lasting happiness. So, this inner development in terms of learning to manage our emotions better, in terms of better sticking to our resolutions, in terms of, say, becoming free from anger.
I am short-tempered and I get angry at people. I don’t want to become angry. So, is there any pill that I can pop up? Just take the pill, anger goes off.
Now, I can take a pill and I can go to sleep. Sometimes in mental health care units, they give sleeping pills to people who are violent. But after they wake up, their anger is still there again.
But, if we develop ourselves spiritually, Bhakti Yoga is a time-honoured process, which is also scientific in its own way, in the sense that it is reasonable, it is repeatable, it is verifiable, that it can bring about inner transformation. It can actually change us internally. It can bring out our higher side.
How does it do this? I said that, we, at the level of the body, the body is a programme machine. But we ourselves are not programme machines. We are the possessors of these machines.
And we are not just the possessors of programme machines, we are the possessors of programmable machines. The body is programmed in a particular way, but I am different from my body. Yes, when somebody does something to me, I have a tendency to become angry.
That’s just the biological reaction that comes with it. But, I, as a soul, am different from it. And I can choose to act on that biological reaction, or I can choose to resist that biological reaction.
And to the extent that I understand that I am different from my biology, to that extent, I can restrain the biological urges that come with it. And thus, we, the whole potential for self-development, for self-improvement, for self-actualisation, it is possible only when we have free will. And that requires that there is something more to us than just the material, physical creatures, the physical side of our being.
And this self-transformation can help us not only individually, but it can also help the whole collective. The UNESCO charter said that the war begins in the minds of people. And therefore, peace also has to be established in the minds of people.
So, when people become internally peaceful, then there can be external peace. Actually, Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON, he said that there is no point in crying for world peace unless there is an awakening of divine consciousness within the individual. So, to the extent we bring out this, so, spirituality helps us bring this inside-out change.
That we, ourselves, become better humans. We become agents of change, positive change in the world. And thus, not only do we become better, but we play our part in making the world a better place.
I spoke about how many are unscientific, but is it unreal? So, I talked about, we are not scientists or spiritualists, we are human beings on a quest for knowledge. And science offers us some knowledge, and spirituality offers some other knowledge. So, we can see these as complementary.
So, Einstein said that gravitation can explain falling objects, it can’t explain people falling in love. Because there is a whole side of our life, emotions and love, which is not explainable in terms of simply natural explanations to natural phenomena. So, science is like a torch, which looks within a room for whatever is lost.
But what about what exists outside the room? Science cannot tell whether anything exists or not. So, science claims that it has answers to all questions about everything. That is not science, it is scientism.
And at the start of scientific research itself, what science did was systematic oversimplification. Now, divide separate reality into primary qualities that are measurable and secondary qualities that are non-measurable and neglect the secondary qualities. And thus, we have phenomenal capacity to process the measurable quality, length, mass, breadth and such things.
But, the quality that we both experience within us, colours, beauty, no sophisticated computer can tell us whether a painting is beautiful or not. A computer may be a chess, but it can’t express the joy of playing. So, science can do tremendous information processing, but there is much more to life than that.
And when, if we just look at the scientistic world view, then, the falling of objects, this is the reason. The moving of stars, this is the reason. The motion of unhappy particles, this is the reason.
The purpose of life, there is no reason. We get condemned to ocean of meaninglessness and little islets of meaning in life. But, if we open ourselves to a taken reality as it is, then we will understand that reality is like a three-story building.
And at the level one, science offers us a torch which can shine brilliantly and show what is there. But, when we move it up, it becomes blurred. Level two, we can get some understanding of emotion.
There is some correlation between our emotions and brain states. Science can study brain states. There is correlation like tickling causing laughter.
It is not reduction. Happiness is not laughter. Similarly, brain chemical secretion is not happiness.
And as we move it upward still, at the second level, level three, so spiritual, the torch just becomes blank. So, we need to have another kind of torch to understand this level two and level three. And that torch is what is offered by the spiritual wisdom traditions of the world, especially by the Bhagavad Gita.
And science can answer how questions, how things function at the level one. But the why questions, why do I exist, that is answered through another torch. There is a torch of spiritual knowledge.
With the scientific torch, we have no free will. And as all relationships, all systems of justice, this collapse. But we do have free will.
It is explained by understanding that we are not the bodies which are programmed machines. We are souls who are possessors of programmable machines. And our potential for self-improvement, it becomes possible and it becomes achievable when we develop our spiritual side.
Science can make things better. Spirituality can make people better. So, for operating, for practical purposes, we use science.
And for knowing what is the ultimate purpose of life and pursuing that purpose, we turn to spiritual knowledge. In this way, we can reconcile both. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Do we have any questions or comments? So, yes, scientific progress has been opposed by religion, especially by the church. And the scientists may also be aesthetically, aesthetic people.
And religion also has caused violence or it has led to violence. Yeah. See, this was just an introductory talk.
Actually, I have a whole three-day seminar on science and spirituality where we go much more deeper. I’ll answer each of these points. Firstly, yes, if you go into the political history of the times, of the church, it was not specifically the point of, the point of, not specifically, it was more of Copernicus and Galileo specifically who was opposed by the church.
That was basically a misunderstanding of the scope of scriptural knowledge. In religion also, there is, it often happens that the, lot of accretions come in. That means, the core texts of a tradition are telling something.
But many other things are brought into that tradition. So, the specific worldview that was opposed, that claimed that, oh, the earth is the centre of the universe, not the sun, that is not a worldview, that is not a point which is given in the Bible. That was given by a Greek philosopher known as Ptolemy.
So, many times if you see what the core texts of religion are telling, I am not going to talk here in detail about either the Bible or the Bible, the point which is that, if we carefully understand things, there is, the conflict is not over core issues. The conflict is over peripheral issues. So, as far as scripture is concerned, the scripture may also show us some light about the ground floor.
And scripture’s primary contribution is the first floor and the second floor. Now, sometimes there may be some contradiction and that has to be gracefully resolved. Why do we talk about conflict between science and religion? There is so much conflict between science and science.
Different scientific theories there is conflict and sometimes it can become very bitter, especially when fines are involved. So people can get, so conflict is just a fact of human nature and it will come in any field. So, it’s not if science and spirituality are intrinsically opposed to each other.
They have their own scopes and sometimes like, what you call it, there are border tensions that are always possible. Two countries may be living peacefully but sometimes there will be, okay, is this in my zone or your zone? Those tensions have to be resolved appropriately at its particular, whenever they occur. The second point about scientists being aesthetically refined people, yes.
There is no denying that. The point is, are they aesthetic because of their science or in spite of their science? There is nothing in the scientific worldview itself that will promote aesthetics. There are people who are by their upbringing, by their church, by their own nature, they are aesthetically good and they continue to be aesthetically good.
And the scientific worldview itself does not promote aesthetics. It’s not that it is intrinsically opposed but basically, an artist may look at a flower, this is so beautiful. A scientist may look at, okay, this is Andalusian, Galusian, Garbals and that is also one way of looking at its value.
But there are two different approaches and both have their utility. So, scientists may be aesthetic people and that is definitely possible. Just as there may be spiritualists who are very scientific.
Isn’t it? So, we can have, this overlapping is always possible. Third point about religion causing violence. Again, if you go deeper into it, it is not so much religion but it is things which are accretions in religion.
And religion is a search for spiritual knowledge, for spiritual understanding, for spiritual growth. It is ultimately a search for truth, search for God. Then religion can guide people upwards.
But many times, religion gets mixed in the world with politics, with power, with position and then it can get distorted. In the Vedic tradition, there has always been a separation between a spiritual power and material power. The spiritual power was vested with the Brahmanas.
The material power was with the Kshatriyas. And in this way, now of course, sometimes the Brahmanas also became proud and they became attached. We want material power also, we want material prestige also.
And then that led to degeneration, the caste system, discrimination. But the concept was a separation between the two. You see, Buddhism also had this separation.
Buddha himself was more of like an enunciate. So he was more of having intellectual power or spiritual power. And Ashoka, when he had the martial power, he spread Buddhism.
There is normally separation. Now, as religions gain power, sometimes there is confliction between the two. And when this confliction happens, then rather than religion being a spiritual search for the truth, it becomes a political search for power.
So when Christianity became mixed with the Roman Catholic Empire, the Roman Empire became the Catholic Empire. And the Popes often had more power than the Kings. And the Catholic Church committed a lot of atrocities.
So, in today’s world Islam, in many ways, at an individual level, what happened is that there are many pious Muslims who see Islam as a way to move towards God. But at a social level, because in the formation of Islam, there was not the separation of spiritual and martial power. Jesus was more or less like the, you know, in Christianity, Jesus was the saintly figure.
He was the spiritual power. And Saint Paul, he was primarily the person who evangelised. But in Islam, there is, Mohammed is both the spiritual leader and the political leader.
Yeah, but whatever it is, whatever he taught some spiritual values, the point that happened is, because of that, subsequent generations of political leaders in Islam, they follow Mohammed’s political example, not his spiritual example. And then that leads to problems. So I am not talking specifically about Islam or Christianity.
It’s just a human feeling. Now when religion gets mixed with other things, now it cannot stay unmixed, but it needs to use those things for a spiritual growth. But when its purpose gets diverted, then even religion can lead to conflicts.
But then, if you want to point fingers, the purpose is, pointing fingers is not of much use. If you want to say that, okay, religion is leading to terrorists who are becoming suicide bombers but then, if there had been no technology, how much could these terrorists have achieved? Isn’t it? So actually, whether it is technology or whether it is ideology, ultimately it is a human being who is responsible. Just as when bombs are used to kill people, we don’t each time blame the founder of dynamite.
Isn’t it? So similarly, when abuse is used, we don’t have to blame the source of religion. That abuse needs to be corrected and that requires education. To the extent education is there, to that extent, whether it is science or whether it is spirituality, it can be used properly.
To the extent that education is not there, then it will be misappropriated and misused. So here the purpose is not to say that, oh science is all bad and religion is all good. No, as I said right in the beginning, and we are searching for knowledge.
So we can use science for gaining knowledge and we can use spiritual religion for gaining knowledge. But what is important is we who are responsible. So the way we act will determine how we move forward in our life.
Does this answer your question? So the uncertainty principle, can we associate with say love not being predictable? Yeah. See basically, there is a science journalist, a science author who has written a book, How Science Progressed from the 19th century to the 20th century. The title of the book is From Certainty to Uncertainty.
Classical mechanics. Yeah, so what happened is Lord Kelvin around 1896 he said the biggest problem for physicists in future is going to be unemployment. He says we have understood the whole world now.
What are they going to do in future? But then within a few decades relativity developed and then quantum physics developed and the whole structure that classical physics that was there got completely changed. So now we understand that reality is much much more complex than what we thought it earlier to be. So therefore that can make us more open to other modes of understanding.
So science has its value, science has its validity but we can be more open to other modes of understanding and the very fact that science has at some ways come to a principle of uncertainty. So that indicates that our knowledge in science will never be definitive. So there is always the possibility for alternative forms of knowledge and we have to find out how we can get an integrated understanding, the most enriching understanding that is well helpful for our living.
So science can inform us and spirituality can inform us and spiritual wisdom text can inform us and thus we can live a more well informed and more purposeful life. So the concept of law may be consumed also in different ways by different religions and sometimes it may just be very sentimental things. How can it be made more concrete or how can we understand it properly? When we talk about different religions, they all offer us different perspectives of reality.
Bhaktivinod Thakur, one of our prominent Acharyas, he explains in Chaitanya Sikshamrit that we consider the truth to be like a mountain. At mountain peak, it has been viewed by Patanjali from one side and Plato from the other side. So the different thinkers have viewed the same absolute truth in different ways depending on how close they have gone their perspective may become clearer and clearer.
But it is one absolute truth. He is clear that no tradition has a monopoly on the absolute truth. At the same time, that does not mean that the quest for absolute truth is a total free for all.
There are objective criteria that we can consider. So when it comes to love or love for God, how do we understand it? There are two things. First is, let’s understand how we look at love in this world.
Many people talk about love and especially romantic love is glamorised in novels, in movies and say two people fall in love with each other and they say, I can’t live without you and they fight against the whole world to be with each other and they come together, they fall in love. So, no, love is not just emotion. Love is also dedication.
Yes, after I come closer to a person I will see some part of that person that is not so nice. But then in spite of that I stay committed. So normally we have a lot of sentimentality associated with the idea of romantic love.
But love in its most moving sense, where do we see it? We see it in commitment. You know, if somebody in love falls sick and still they are there to by their side taking care of the person. When a baby is newborn, the baby is like an unpredictable alarm clock.
This goes off anytime. And the mother wakes up and takes care of him. You see, love is not just emotion.
It is dedication. Similarly, if you are going to look at religious traditions, you can see where exactly do we see dedication? Do we see dedication to God? So, do we see commitment to turn away from the world to turn towards God? So, people may say that yes, I talk with God, I love God. It’s fine.
Prabhupada once told Swamiji, Krishna came in my dream yesterday. So, Prabhupada said, alright, serve him today. It was fine.
Krishna comes in the dream, that’s wonderful. But what after that? Our relationship with Krishna is not in the dream world. It is here.
So, we have to serve Krishna here. And so, if we are practically committed to living in a mood of service, to doing direct services to Krishna and also redefining our life in a mood of service to him, that’s dedication. So, we can see love for God not just in the emotion but in the dedication.
So, that’s one aspect of it. Now, how much are we dedicated to the cause of God? Second aspect would be that when we develop love for God, we don’t see God in an exclusive way. We see God in an inclusive way.
If I see that this is my God, I love God and then I hate everyone else. Then actually that God, that God is actually not the God of scriptural revelation. That is the God simply of my own mental conception.
So, it’s like there is a God as absolute truth but different people may conceal their God in different ways. So, for example, some people become terrorists and kill others in the name of God. No, they conceal their God who hates those whom they hate.
It’s as simple as that. They hate some people and they conceal that God hates those people also and if I kill those people, God will be pleased with me. Now, this is not a God who is given the scriptures.
That God is simply a projection of their own ego. My own ego wants to hate someone and I project that into super size and make that into God and God hates these people. So, if our love for God is making us intolerant, if it is making us narrow minded, if it is making us hate others who are also children of God, then we have to understand that this is not a real love of God.
A love of God should lead to an attitude of loving service towards God and towards everyone in relationship with God. When that comes about, then we can see that this love is for genuine. Then there are, of course, the specifics of the revelation.
What is the content of the revelation? All those are technical details. Primarily, if our love for God is genuine, it should just go beyond emotion to dedication. It’s a committed focus on the Lord, turning away from worldly pleasures for His sake, accepting inconveniences for His sake and secondly, it should lead to an attitude of loving disposition towards everyone in relationship with God.
Does anyone else have any question? We’ll come back to you. So, you want to reduce the anger. I said that we can become more spiritual and that will reduce the anger.
But then scientists have found that the frontal lobe of the brain which controls our emotions and if that is more developed then we can control our anger also. So, is it that spirituality is related to the frontal lobe of the brain or what exactly is spirituality? For anything that we do at a physical level, at the level of the body, we need the physical tool to be functional. Right now I am speaking, I may have very deep spiritual intention to speak some spiritual wisdom but if my throat is spoilt, I’ll not be able to speak.
So, the spiritual intention has to be complemented with a material instrument. So, the brain is a material instrument and that has various different areas which relate to different functions. So, yes, we could say that a particular part of the brain is related more with emotionality, a particular part of the brain is related more with rationality or it’s more related with self-control, with restricting our emotions.
That’s fine. But the point is that who is operating that? It’s like somebody who is a weightlifter that person’s muscles will naturally be stronger than other people’s muscles. But those muscles became stronger because someone exercised those muscles.
Similarly, yes, if we develop the frontal, assume that we can actually correlate particular human functions with particular areas of the brain and assuming that the correlation is correct just for argument’s sake, then also there is somebody who is operating the brain. So, if somebody acts regularly in a disciplined and controlled way, then naturally that part of the brain will become stronger. So, that’s the inner muscle for restraining our emotions.
But there is someone who has to use that muscle. Dr. Wilder Benfield was a Nobel laureate neurosurgeon and he wrote a book and he did experiments to try to find out where consciousness is located in the brain. So, one experiment he did was he had some subjects raise their hands and when you raise their hands we know that there is a particular area of the brain which is connected to the motor nervous system.
So, that part of the brain got activated. When a person’s hand is raised that part of the brain gets activated. So, then he mechanically activated and asked the subject what happened.
He said my hand went up. The hand would go up. Did you raise your hand? No, I didn’t.
You did. Then he deactivated that part of the brain. The hand fell down.
He said what happened? He said my hand fell down. Did you put it down? No, you put it down. So, now Dr. Benfield asked this question.
He says basically you could say that this brain, the particular part of the brain moves up and down. Like I have a computer with a printer. The print button causes the printing hand to move up and down.
So, like that this hand moves up and down. So, in the second case it was he, Dr. Benfield who operated that control centre in the brain and caused the hand to move up and down. So, in the first case who operated it? First he said I am raising my hand and I am putting my hand down.
I am not raising my hand. I am not putting my hand down. You are doing it.
Different parts of the brain but no matter which part of the brain he activated never would a subject get the feeling that I am doing the thinking. Subject would say yeah, I am remembering my childhood. I am remembering this.
I am remembering that. But the rememberer, the person who is remembering, the person who is feeling, the person who is the agent of action that was never found in the brain. So, he computed after almost 40 years of brain research that there is something inside the brain.
It is outside the brain. The brain is like a computer but it is programmed by something outside. So, that means that yes, if we could develop a particular part of the brain which is associated with self-control then that might help us to control ourselves better.
But who is it that is developing that part of the brain? That is the focus of spiritual study. To control themselves better. But who is it that is doing that? That is not in the brain.
That is the source of consciousness, the spiritual entity that is separate from the brain. Thank you. Can there be a concept called spiritual science? Science as it is defined today in the mainstream world is as I said material explanations for material phenomena.
If we consider that definition it is incompatible. But if we consider science as a word, actually words, their meanings are not fixed in dictionaries. Newton did not identify himself as a scientist.
He identified himself as a natural philosopher. The word scientist came in the late 18th century. So, if today the word science, most people they may study science for 10-15 years and they won’t even know what it is.
So, just think of science as a systematic body of acquiring knowledge. So, if we consider that generic understanding of science then as I said spiritual knowledge can be reasonable, can be repeatable, can be verified. So, the system of Bhakti Yoga that the Bhagavad Gita talks about, talks about different yogas, culminates in Bhakti Yoga.
So, it understands systematically. So, just as scientific theory, if it makes sense, it’s reasonable. So, the basic postulates, they stand the scrutiny of reason.
They are reasonable. And then, what it promises is repeatable. It doesn’t just promise us you will one day wake up and you will see God.
Somebody may claim I have seen God but how will the rest of us know whether that person has seen God or not. Transformation. Millions of people all over the world by practising Bhakti Yoga have been able to break free from bad habits, have been able to develop themselves spiritually, have been able to get rid of addictions, get rid of anger and this has been objectively demonstrated.
And this is something which is repeatable. Thousands of people have experienced it and it is verifiable. You can experience it.
So, in terms of those criteria of being reasonable, repeatable, verifiable, we can say that spirituality is also a science. So, thank you very much for your kind attention. Hare Krishna.