Making sense of fantastic descriptions in scripture
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
I will talk about this theme of how the celestial points to the transcendental. That here in the subsequent verses we will have a description of the abode of Lord Shiva, Kailash. And phenomenal opulence is there over there.
And how all this points ultimately to transcendental. So I'll talk about this in three parts. First is that how can in today's world where there is so much emphasis on rationality, we accept or communicate to people that there is the celestial abode with such kind of phenomenal prosperity and features.
Then after that I'll talk about how within whatever happens, the celestial is setting. The setting may be celestial, but the kind of events that happen, the kind of decisions that people have to take within the celestial settings, actually there are universal themes that relate to our lives also. The kind of emotions, the kind of situations, the kind of decisions that the people have to face, they are universal.
And that's what we can learn ultimately. So from the celestial to the universal, to the transcendental. What is this? How does all this point towards transcendence? So let's look at the first point.
The celestial, that much of modern society operates within what can be called as a tunnel vision of reality. It's a tunnel vision means that if there is a tunnel, you have to see a long distance within the tunnel. But we can't see anything apart from the tunnel.
All that we see everywhere around us is walls. And we can't see anything. Similarly, if we consider knowledge in the modern society, it has expanded enormously in terms of, say, our knowledge about the fundamental particles.
There are hundreds of books written about fundamental particles, hundreds of books which are published about the vast universe. So if we compare about the state of knowledge of matter, three hundred, four hundred years ago and what it is now, it's enormously increased. So now in this knowledge, increasing knowledge is also required effort.
It has required creativity. It has required a lot of intelligent hard work on the part of scientists. Some people shed physical sweat to do hard work.
Some people shed intellectual sweat. Now, intellectual sweat is not seen, but it's also intellectual sweat to understand and to appreciate. So this has given us far more knowledge than what we have earlier.
But that knowledge is like a tunnel vision. Within the tunnel we can see very far, but we can't see much beyond the tunnel. So what is this tunnel? This tunnel essentially is that the whole of the universe is made of gross matter or basically matter acting according to impersonal forces.
So gravity is impersonal force, matter is object. So why did the apple fall down? Apple is object and neutral soil falling down. So why did it fall down? Because the force of gravity acted on it.
So there are unconscious particles acted on by impersonal forces. And that is all that the tunnel vision of science says is there in the universe. But even within science itself, there is an acknowledgement that what we know about the universe is very little.
I once gave a class on the scientific interpretation of Damodar Leela. So what I essentially explained is that just as Mother Ishtar was trying to tie Krishna and her belly was always, the rope was always two fingers short. Similarly, if we consider Krishna's belly is what gives rise to the universe.
So the universe is what science is trying to tie with some universal theory. They wanted some one theory which can explain everything. They called GUT, Grand Unified Theory or TOE, Theory of Everything.
So they're trying for that. But for many, many decades, they've been trying. And scientists, eminent scientists, they say that Stephen Willberg is Nobel laureate.
He said in the last 20 years, we have made phenomenal progress. But the further we move, the further the solution seems to move from us. They're not getting anywhere.
So the scientific knowledge is expanding, but scientific understanding is not expanding. Why is that? Because of two main reasons. So there's a two, like the rope was two fingers short.
So science understanding is always falling two fingers short. What are the two fingers? The first is that the more we come to know, the more we realize how much more there is to know. When we were on the Earth and we're looking at the space, we thought, OK, the cosmos is big.
But when we send probes into the space and then we look at the space, it's so much bigger. When initially, Dalton thought that atoms are an individual particle. But now, within the atom, there's a whole universe.
So the more we come to know, the more we realize how much more there is to know. That's what is happening. It's like Krishna's rope was never enough.
The rope was never enough. So like that we learn. But we realize there is so much more to learn.
And that's why scientific understanding is never enough for comprehending the universe. And the second point is, the more we come to know, the more we realize that what we knew was not right. So what happens is scientific knowledge advances.
How does it advance? It's not that, OK, we had this many books, now we have this many books. But that doesn't mean our understanding has increased. Because we had this many books, we had 10 books earlier on a particular subject, now we have 20 books.
But most of the new 10 books are not giving a new understanding. They're mostly giving how the previous understanding was wrong. So therefore, our knowledge doesn't build.
That's why, in fact, there's a science journal who's written a book called The Journey of Science in 19th Century to 20th Century. It's a journey from certainty to uncertainty. At the start of the 20th century, people were very certain, yes, Newtonian physics works.
You've got the whole universe mapped out. But in the 20th century, we realize that there's so much perplexity. There is so little that we know.
And so basically, because of these two factors, the more we come to know, the more we realize how much more there is to know. And the more we come to know, the more we realize that what we knew was not right. Now, not right means not completely wrong.
It did work. But it is not the complete understanding. So because of this, science has now, at least there was in the history of Western thought, in the first decade of the 20th century or the 21st century, there's what was called a science wars.
Science wars means there are scientists on one side and philosophers of science on the other side. And there's a very intense conflict between the two. And the base of the conflict was, is science a reliable road to reality? So now the mainstream understanding among scientists is that science gives us one model of reality.
And there could be other models of reality which could explain things in very different ways. And they might also have their working value. So what do we mean by a model of reality? That just like if we have a territory, we have India and we have a map of India.
A map of India is broadly correlated with India. But it is not the same as India. And we could depict India in an entirely different way without using any map also.
We could make an encyclopedia about India. We could make a movie about India. We could write a book about Indian culture.
We could make a graphic movie about how Indian languages are related and different. So India itself is a reality. The map is also a reality.
But the map is not a full description of reality. So similarly, science is one road to one aspect of reality. This is a map described the physical topography of the country.
Similarly, the physical layout of the country is described in the map. Similarly, science describes the material phenomena in a particular way. So rather than rejecting science as wrong or accepting science as absolute, there is a balanced way in between where we recognize science as one product, powerful product, but as one product of one way of looking at reality.
So there can be other ways. And through other ways, if you can get better understandings, then we need to be open to that. And that's why more and more in the Western world, as well as people are recognizing that there is much more to the reality, much more to reality than what is perceived.
So I was talking to Hanumath Prasad Maharaj. He was in Peru. He's a South America primalist.
He was telling that there there is a lot of black magic and a lot of a lot of ghosts or spirits coming. So officially, the scientists don't believe in ghosts. But there was a particular house which is considered to be haunted.
And in that house, there's one skeptic. He says, I don't believe in this. And he went and stayed there in the night.
And the next morning, when you came back, when people didn't come back and then they went and investigated in the daytime, they found this dead. And then nobody could find out what was the cause of the death. So after that.
So there was this skeptics association which said that, you know, who will go and stay in this and we will have proper monitors and everything. This time camera will see what happened. So not one scientist was ready.
Since we are scientific, but we're not stupid. So the idea is, practically speaking, nobody lives as if science is the only way to knowledge. Nobody lives like that.
It is even in day to day dealings as well as in extraordinary situations like this. Even day to day dealings, if somebody is a brain surgeon. And they've got the most sophisticated probes to look into the brain.
The brain surgeon comes back home and his wife is upset with him. Will you say, let me do a brain scan to find out why you're upset. My wife will say, you go and scan your brain first.
So we implicitly understand that science is one road to knowledge. And that's why the scripture gives us certain fantastic descriptions. And so then you have to understand that this may be fantastic, but this is not fantasy.
It is a difference. Fantastic means it's astonishing. It's incredible.
But fantasy means a product of imagination. So scriptural descriptions may be fantastic from our perspective, but that does not mean that they are fantasy. They are the products of another way of looking at reality.
Another way of looking at another aspect of reality, which we can't see with our eyes. So what is so till now what I talked about is the very reality that we are looking at that itself can be seen in different ways. But in another aspect of reality, which you see in an entirely different way, then why not? There can be there can be different ways of looking at the universe.
And scripture gives us another way of looking at the universe. And that's why we don't have to position science and scripture as competitors of each other. If you position scripture as a competitor of science, we devalue scripture.
Because scripture is giving us higher knowledge. Scripture is giving us knowledge about how to develop our consciousness, how to ultimately attain Krishna. Science is giving us knowledge about how to function in this world.
Scripture may also give us some of that knowledge, but the primary focus of these two knowledge systems is very different. And when we make people think that, OK, to accept scripture, you have to give up science. Then it becomes too much of a cognitive challenge for them.
How can I give up science? I can see science works. Yes, science works. But is science all that works? Do you work only based on science? Nobody lives like that.
So if we clearly understand that there may be some or some areas of overlap, but primarily they're talking about two different domains of knowledge. And Prabhupada writes in a fifth canto purport that when he's giving about some description, he says science can neither prove these nor disprove these. It is beyond the domain of science.
So rather than making people choose between science and scripture, we contextualize science so that scripture is seen as a source of higher knowledge. By higher, we are not demeaning or minimizing science. He's saying that science is a particular tool and in that tool, certain things will be seen very clearly.
And that tool is very powerful. If we want to hitchhike from India to Europe, we need a map. And without a map, it will be very difficult.
But on the map, we will not come to know that how as Indian, how we will be received in Pakistan. There is some other source of knowledge for that. So we can acknowledge the power of a particular tool without giving it absolute power.
And that's how we function day to day life. So this is the first point that even if we live in an age of scientific rationalism, rationality, we can be open to higher alternative or higher source of knowledge. But recognizing that science is one road to one aspect of reality.
Any questions or comments about this? We see in scriptures, like in Patala Lokas, there is advanced technology there. So sometimes people comment that there is higher technology. The more they compare that civilization advances towards like more Kali Yuga progresses, like that technology comes.
Is it any correlation between them or independent? Okay. So there is advanced technology even in the lower planetary systems. So is it that as Kali Yuga progresses, technology progresses? Well, there is, if you consider the three aspects to existence of reality, there is the Jagat, we call it as Jagat, Jeev and Jagdish.
We have the matter, we have consciousness and we have the supreme. As Prabhupada says in the 13th chapter title, more or less similar. So now, if you look at the history of the universe, originally theology, the study of God, was considered like the queen of knowledge.
That was considered to be the most important study. So now, but in the history of science at a particular time, people had a feeling as God is very, God, who knows God exists or not. As science develops, science operates primarily based on the principle of the controlled experiment.
You take a particular stimulus, isolate it from all other stimuli, a particular subject, isolate from other stimuli and then subject it to specific stimuli and see what is the result. So if you want to say an acid and a base come together to produce salt, then make sure that the acid is pure, make sure that the base is pure and then mix them together. So basically science operates based on the principle of the controlled experiment.
But the point is that we cannot control God. So I wrote an article about this, that to understand Krishna, stand under Krishna. That we have to submit ourselves.
And because God cannot be controlled, so science started focusing on what can be controlled. So if you consider there is Jagdish, there is Jeev and there is Jagat. So traditionally the focus of the study was Jagdish.
But in the age of science, the focus has shifted to the Jagat. We focus on matter and matter alone. And try to understand matter in itself without considering any higher aspects of reality.
Now of course there is another trend of thought which is pre-modern, modern and post-modern. So in pre-modern thought, Jagdish was the primary object of thought. In modern thought, Jagat, matter was the primary object of thought.
In post-modern thought, it is the Jeeva. Now Jeeva not in terms of the soul being spiritual, but rather subjectivity has become the primary basis of understanding. So in post-modern idea is that everything is relative.
That actually a text has no inherent meaning. Whatever a person wants to read, they understand it like that. So basically the point is that in general if we consider people who are in demoniac consciousness or lower consciousness, they will be obsessed more and more with matter.
So in that sense we could say the kind of technology that is being developed today is very matter centered. There may have been technology in the past, but it was not so matter centered. Although we were operating matter, we were operating matter by invoking higher powers who were in control of matter.
So in that sense there is a decline in consciousness because of which we are getting so obsessed with matter. And we could say that kind of decline in consciousness is typical of Kali Yuga. But I wouldn't say that it is only that kind of study that is happening.
Even in today's world also there are people in sattva. And there are many people, especially consciousness has become a big object to study. And a lot of people are open to non-material explanations for consciousness.
So in that sense we can try to see current social or intellectual trends through the eye of scripture. But we need to, we can't reduce everything to that. Just like you say this is a dark age, but in that there is a golden age.
So I would say that yes, overall science is studying matter and that indicates a declining consciousness. But there is openness to exploring higher aspects of reality also. So you explained about the post-modern thought as being like subjective thinking.
Or like you could be right, you could be right. That more or less sounds like the Jainist, Jain philosophy. Where they give this example of, I mean their whole philosophy is centered around this.
Five or six blind men trying to understand the elephant, how an elephant looks like. The analogy that we give, that's originally a Jain analogy. Where six blind men come and they touch the elephant.
Some touches the trunk, some touches the, and so on. And each one comes with their own understanding. And that's the whole Jain understanding like.
That's why their understanding is, philosophy is called syatva. This is my understanding, syat, that could be right. This is my understanding, syat, that could be right.
So practically they say that anyone could be right. Nothing, everything is ultimately subjective. There is no objective reality.
Interesting, yeah. So is the post-modern understanding similar to the Jain understanding? The Jains have the idea of six blind men and the elephant. Yeah.
I mean I was just thinking maybe if that is the direction in which we are going, then it's no wonder that more and more people are getting attracted to Buddhist and Jain, you know, like sort of thought process. That's true. Could that be the reason why, say, Buddhist and Jain, Buddhist thought has become more popular? There are two different things from what I have read about Jainism.
I studied world religions, but because Jain was so small, I didn't, I studied Buddhism, but I didn't see Jainism much in detail. But from what I have read about it, primarily Jainism has its proper philosophy. And the six blind men and the elephant, that particular example is compatible with, I would say, most philosophical systems of thought.
Even we say that Krishna is so great that even Krishna himself doesn't know. So in that sense, our perspective of Krishna is limited. And the point in post-modernism is not just that, that we all are having subjective takes on reality.
The point is that there is no reality at all. Albert Camus was an existentialist philosopher and he said that life is misery. Therefore, the only philosophical question worth asking is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow.
And he wrote books saying that don't commit suicide today. Frederick Nietzsche, whom we famously know for his proclamation, God is dead. Now, he was not exactly an atheist campaigner.
He was actually, he did not, he did not kill God. He said the priests have killed God by the way they have lived. And the priests have made belief in God untenable.
But anyway, he said that he was also profoundly pessimistic. And he said it is best to never be born. It is best to never be born.
If you are born, it is best to die young. In fact, just now, there's a young man, 25 years old. He has done a court case against his parents.
And he said, what is the ridiculous court case? But you see the mentality. His court case is that his life is so miserable. Why did my parents give birth to me without my consent? So, actually, you may say it's ridiculous, but it's a whole doctrine, which is called antinatalism.
Natalism is basically a child is born. So antinatalism is that life is so miserable that it's best to not be born. So the antinatalism activists, they say that human beings should stop reproducing.
Stop having children. And within a few generations, humanity will wipe out. And that way, we will not subject future generations of humanity to misery.
And humanity is causing so much ecological problems also. The other living beings also live peacefully. So it's an ideology in itself.
You could say it's an idiotic ideology. But still, postmodernism is not just that there are different takes on reality. It's actually there is no reality at all.
And whatever you say, you want to believe it's all right. In fact, postmodernism, even among philosophers, they say that what it means itself is a matter of debate. And one of their arguments is that not only is reality.
We don't know whether reality exists or not. They say language is an extremely unreliable tool to reality. And most of philosophy today is all about the technicalities of language.
I didn't study the mainstream media. So to some extent, Buddhism has been successful with the postmodern mind. Primarily because Buddhism, especially as it is presented in the West, is very pragmatic.
It is not philosophical. Pragmatic means it doesn't go into the philosophical aspect at all. It just gives you some exercises for the mind, how to calm your mind down.
And most of the millennial crowd that is primarily interested in pragmatic spirituality, not in philosophical spirituality. Pragmatic means what makes me feel better? What makes me become a little calmer? What helps me manage my mind and emotions better? So whether that has some basis in reality or not, it doesn't matter. We could say broadly that Buddhism as it is presented today is very suited for the postmodern thought.
Dalai Lama was asked what is the essence of religion or what is the essence of Buddhism? So he said compassion, love and compassion. Now that's true. We will also agree with that.
But there is a worldview from that which arises. So Buddhism doesn't talk about the worldview. Buddhism talks only about the virtues.
And love and compassion is what people want. They say there is so much conflict and so much intolerance. So yes, Buddhism is a very attractive philosophy for the postmodern mind.
Because it allows you to bring into it any philosophy that you want. Jainism has somehow not become that popular because there are no, as far as I can see, there are not many proponents of Jainism. And Jainism has traditionally been more inward.
If somebody wants to become a Jain monk also, it's not easy. They don't preach like other organizations. But yes, relativism is something non-philosophical and relativism and postmodernism can go along with that easily.
Talking about practical sense, today's world, people have more faith in science than spirituality. And any problem they have, they know that science is working on it. There are technologies that are helping to save our time and devices and everything.
And in terms of spirituality, they don't seem things happening. Like we say, even in our circle, if somebody comes, he has some problem, we say chant Hare Krishna. Of course, we tell them do something practical also.
But then many times people who come to the temple don't feel that this really helps practically like chanting or hearing. And years of practice also, the person who is practicing after years, he feels that whether this process is working. Of course, it depends on the individual's sincerity.
But then when we are connecting with new people, how do we guide them or at least convince them that this stream has definitely a great power? Yeah. People see science working, but spirituality, Krishna consciousness, they don't see it working. So even if somebody is practicing for many years also, they may wonder whether it's working.
So how do we deal with that? I've seen this question whenever I travel in the West. Many of my senior devotees have been 20, 30 years in the movement, in Prabhupada disciples. We have discussed this with them.
So one thing I feel is that we tend to overpromise initially. That means that there are material problems and also there are spiritual solutions to material problems, which is true in principle. But in practice, the spirituality is not a replacement for materialism.
Or rather, spiritual solutions are not a replacement to material solutions. Spiritual solutions are the foundation for the material solutions. So sometimes, earlier I said we might present science and scripture as competitors.
Sometimes we present material solutions and spiritual solutions as competitors. And that is not healthy if I consider when Arjun fought the Kurukshetra war and won the war. Now, did he win that war because of the knowledge of Bhagavad Gita that Krishna gave him? Or did he win it because of the knowledge of archery that he had learned throughout his life? What do you think? Yeah? Yeah, both.
It is not as if Bhagavad Gita taught him archery. So there was a politician who made, like a Hindu writing politician, that politician said that the Bhagavad Gita has a solution to all problems. Well, yes, in principle.
What is the solution? That means the Bhagavad Gita gives us the clarity of consciousness, gives us the clarity of the purpose of life by which we can find the right material solution also to work in that situation. So when we make, so I would consider a statement, a blanket statement like that without any contextualization explanation. Bhagavad Gita has a solution to all problems.
Krishna Consciousness has a solution to all problems. Yes, it is. But how does that be applied? If you don't explain that, sometimes such statements can be, for people who are skeptical, they will be alienating.
And for people who practice, they may be disappointing. So we need to explain properly. Krishna Consciousness is something which will change our consciousness.
And then in our particular situation, whatever is the particular material solution that will work the best, we will adopt that, but for a spiritual purpose. So again, science and spirituality have different domains. We also, in a common sense way, we understand this.
Let's say if I got a fracture, I can't say that I just chant Hare Krishna, fracture will get better. Well, chanting Hare Krishna can help me to tolerate the pain, but I have to go and take surgery from a doctor. So with respect to physical matter, we easily understand these things.
That the spiritual is not a substitute for the physical. In fact, the American government has passed some rules about this. America is primarily Protestant.
And in Protestant, there are conservative Protestants and there are liberal Protestants. Liberal Protestants try to accommodate science and scientific insights. The conservative Protestants, many of them are called evangelicals.
So sometimes we consider all Christians to be evangelicals, but it's not that. There are only Protestants and Protestants who are conservative. They are called evangelicals.
So one extreme evangelical organization, they said that if you surrender to Jesus, then you will become free from all problems. And they were aggressively canvassing in the universities. And the students in Christianity, especially among illiterate people, they have this concept of faith healing.
And they will show if you just look for faith healing on YouTube also, you may see some videos. Somebody who comes with crutches and then he comes and bows before the father and the father puts them in sanctified water. Oh, I'm healed.
And he throws away the crutches and walks off. And gullible people can become very naïve. People can get carried away by this.
More often than not, that person didn't need crutches before also. It's just a show. It's a. And exposures of this also have been done.
But the idea of faith healing is quite common in Christianity. Our acharyas have not talked about that. We don't talk about faith healing in the sense that by your devotion, your physical ills will be healed.
So anyway, what happened was this this particular evangelical organization said that if if you have faith in Jesus, all your problems will go away. So there are students who used to wear glasses. And they told them, you just have faith in Jesus.
Jesus made the blind people. He gave them eyes. So what to speak of you? And these kids, when they joined, they told to throw away their glasses and threw away their glasses and they couldn't read.
And they said, no, I have faith in Jesus. He'll be able to read. And still not able to read.
They were sent on a guilt trip that you don't have enough faith in Jesus. So when it started, when your faith starts coming in the way of the proper medical treatment. And the government took it very seriously.
And the government has said that no, no religious faith should come in the way of people's medical. So my point is that this is a with our common sense, we understand. It's not that your spirituality is going to replace your glasses, not the physical glasses.
You might get the inner eyes. So we have to be careful about what we promise. So rather than saying that all your problems will be solved, you will get the inner strength to face your problems.
And then you'll get the inner clarity, but you can find out how to solve your problems. So I wrote an article recently. Krishna does not promise a stormless sea.
He promises an unsinkable ship. He doesn't promise that. If you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace.
So Krishna is not saying that you'll be no obstacles in your life. He's saying that we'll pass over the obstacles. So it's not a stormless sea, but rather we have a ship that is unsinkable and we need to stay in the ship.
If we jump out of the ship, then nothing will work for us. And even in the ship, if we expect there should be no storm, that's also not going to work. So and there is always the zeal of the new convert.
When somebody takes to a new religion initially, there's a zeal of the new convert by which they tend to overpromise. Everything will be dealt with. But it's not like that.
If we clearly explain the domain of Krishna Consciousness and Prabhupada is quite clear that it's Krishna Consciousness. And yes, Krishna Consciousness can have various offshoots. So yes, we can for treating ourselves.
There are many people in the West also who are turning towards alternative medicines. The devotee here was a software engineer and he went to America and he learned Ayurveda in one year. Now he's become an Ayurvedic physician and he's earning more money than what a software engineer would be earning.
Ayurveda is big. In fact, there is an openness to other ways of knowing among people. So rather than positioning science and spirituality as competitors, science works in its own way.
And that is fine. We don't deny that. But there are many areas in which science doesn't work.
Especially with respect to the inner world. I met so many people who actually take medicines for depression or take medicines for anxiety. And that makes their condition worse sometimes.
So with respect to inner management, spirituality does have its potency. So we need to be a little more specific and cautious about what spirituality is going to help. Does that answer your question? So I think I'll have to rush to the remaining two points.
So this is an important point. So the other two points I was going to make. First point was that even in the age of scientific rationality, we can be open to other descriptions of the universe.
They may be fantastic, but they are not fantasy. And second point was that even within these descriptions of the universe, the focus is not on the specifics. The focus is on the dynamics.
Dynamics means that there also, even the description of Kailash or description of Swarga, that might be our description of say Gajendra, that might be fantastic. But within that, what is happening? Within that, people are facing what we could say human dilemmas. Somebody is living comfortably and suddenly we get into danger.
That happened with whom? Gajendra. Somebody is proud and they offend someone else. Indira did with Brahmaspati.
So in this case, Daksha did to Lord Shiva. So if we see as far as the life lessons that are given in scripture, even if the characters are higher and the specifics of those characters are different, the universals are what is important. The universals means that what are the dilemmas that they are facing? There are certain principles about life in the world that are taught through scripture.
And those principles are what are important. So, for example, if you consider Chitraketu pastime. Now, there it is said that Chitraketu had 10 million wives.
Now, is that a literal figure? Maybe, maybe not. Prabhupada in a purport says that he had hundreds of thousands of wives. He had hundreds and thousands of wives.
He does not say hundreds of thousands of wives. Hundreds and thousands of wives is a large number. Now, somebody may say it is given in scripture, it is literal.
Okay, fine. If that is what you accept, that is fine. But if somebody says, how can anyone have that many wives? Even Krishna did not have that many wives.
When is this person actually going to spend time with so many wives? And if he has so, if somebody says, no, he has some mystic power that he can expand. Well, if he has mystic power to expand, there is no description of that given in the pastime. He doesn't have enough mystic power to produce a child.
But he has the mystic power to expand to 10 million wives. Maybe, maybe not. So, if somebody is not able to accept that this 10 million figure is a literal, then let's look at the central point.
See, the acharyas nowhere, whether it is Prabhupada or his acharyas, they don't consider that figure as of vital importance. The important lesson from that pastime is that, oh, he had such prosperity, but because one desire was not fulfilled, his life was completely miserable. So, we may have a million desires that are fulfilled, but one unfulfilled desire can make our life miserable.
So, if somebody cannot accept some aspects of scripture, we don't have to make it into a faith issue. Yes, OK, that's not the important thing. The important thing is here.
The important thing is that this is the life lesson to learn. So, there is a certain amount of latitude that is possible with respect to certain aspects, certain details within scripture. And Prabhupada is also sometimes noncommittal about this.
I gave two examples, I think once in a class earlier also about how when in the first canto, I think 10th, 11th chapters, when Krishna is going to Dwarka from Hastinapur, at that time, which all places he has gone to is described. He went to this city, this city, this village and then he came to Dwarka. And the purport of Prabhupada is that some geologists try to retrace the exact path of Krishna.
But Prabhupada says that's extremely difficult because the surface of the earth keeps changing constantly. As far as we are concerned, we are simply satisfied that Krishna has reached Dwarka and is going to perform pastimes with his devotees. So, Prabhupada's stress is very clear.
Similarly, in the 10th canto, when there is a description of some phenomenal number of bodyguards that Ugrasen had, and Prabhupada, some disciples in Hawaii asked him, and when he tells the scholars that he had so many disciples, that he had so many bodyguards, they laugh at us. Where could they stay? Where were they living? In a small village in Dwarka. And Prabhupada said, among all the thousands of verses in the Bhagavatam, was it the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? Why hark on that? So, for us, one of the offenses to the holy name is to instruct faithless people in the glory of the holy name.
Now, what does that mean? That actually, it can have different meanings, but one understanding is that to instruct people in things that they cannot be expected to have faith in. We have to tell people things which they can have faith in and they will come. So, it's like, say, some temple is on top of a hill and you want somebody to come to the temple.
And that person is old and that person can't walk. And then there is one side of the staircase where they can take small, small steps. And other, like a rocky way, you have to go trekking, climbing up.
And if you show them this way, they say, I don't want to go to the temple. I can't. So, we have to see what level people are at and give them the knowledge that helps them take one step forwards.
So, if we have this attitude that within scripture also there may be fantastic details. And the first point I said, the fantastic details are also intellectually defensible. But if somebody finds it very difficult to accept it, no need to make it a faith issue.
Focus on that which is relevant, that which is essential. You see, even Prabhupada's purport in the 5th canto, Cosmology, it doesn't go too in technicality. He focuses on the principles of spiritual life only within his purpose.
So, that is the second point. The last point is that, as I said, the celestial, within the celestial, the Bhagavatam focuses on the universal and that universal points us to the spiritual. What is the spiritual? The spiritual is that ultimately we are meant to love Krishna.
So, in the 5th canto, Cosmology, the stress is on, OK, this planet is like this, this planet is like this, this planet is like this. But ultimately, this planet is this big. But more than dimensions, what is stressed over there is the consciousness.
Oh, even on this planet, the residents are worshipping Vishnu in this form. On this planet, they are worshipping in this form. And these are the prayers that they are offering over there.
The stress is not on the specifics of the Cosmology. The stress is on the universality of devotion. The stress is not on the specifics of the universe.
The stress is on the universality of spirituality. And if we understand that point, then, actually, Prabhupada also had a non-committal attitude towards certain things. In the introduction of the Bhagavad Gita, he says that we have endeavored a lot to rise to the moon, but we have not endeavored to raise our consciousness.
The Bhagavad Gita will guide us how to raise our consciousness. So, Prabhupada doesn't take any position about, any explicit position there about the moon. So, we have endeavored for that, but let's endeavor for this also.
This will be much more productive. So, we need to intelligently, in our earlier class, I had mentioned about how we need to choose our battles in life. That certain battles are very difficult, just accept it and focus on other things.
Similarly, in outreach also, we have to choose our battles. Which are the points that we want to focus on? What are the points that are important for people to get transformed? So, we choose and connect with people with something which helps them grow. Then, eventually, three possibilities are there.
I'll conclude with this point. That, first is, that once they start applying the spiritual in their lives and their consciousness starts expanding, then they may develop more faith by which they will be able to understand and accept what is given in scriptures. The second is, that as the practices of spirituality start working for them, they will realize, even if they can't accept some things, they will realize this is not so relevant.
This is not what is important. And they will be able to contextualize it. Between intelligence means to focus on that which is important and to put aside that which is not important.
That's the possibility. Third possibility is that they may, with their own intelligence, come up with some way of understanding it which will work for them and work for others. So, Prabhupada, when he presented science, when he started the Bhaktivan Institute, his whole purpose was that you explain scripture in a language that scientists will appreciate.
So, if initially only we make people who are very intelligent to accept this, otherwise get lost. Then what happens? Then they get alienated. But if they come towards Krishna, then over a period of time they will be able to find.
This is like this. This is like this. How can the two be brought in dialogue? How can the two be brought in together in such a way that people who are connected with this can also appreciate this and people who are connected with this can also understand how this works, what this is.
So, they may be able to either accept what is given in scripture or contextualize it and not obsess on it. Or they may be able to bring in a dialogue between scripture and current trends of knowledge and explain it in a way that other people would not be able to. That's why if we focus on the spiritual, everything else will fall in place.
But if we focus on other things, then the spiritual will fall out of place. People will give up spirituality because of this. If we focus on the spiritual, Krishna is there in our hearts, Krishna is in their hearts.
If we connect people with Krishna, then everything else Krishna will guide them. Dadami buddhiyo gantam yena mam upayantite. How to connect with those things, how to contextualize those things, how to contemplate and explain those things.
Krishna will reveal them from their hearts. So, I'll summarize. I spoke on the theme of how the celestial points to the universal and the spiritual.
So, the first point of what I spoke elaborately that in today's age of scientific rationality, how can we accept, how can we convince people about the fantastic seeming description of scripture. So, talk about science is one road to one aspect of reality. Science gives us a tunnel vision.
It focuses on, it reduces the universe to unconscious particles being acted on by impersonal forces. And this is like a map. And like Damodar Leela, the rope was always two fingers short.
Similarly, scientific understanding is always two fingers short. One finger is the more we come to know, the more we realize how much more there is to know. The more we come to know, the more we realize what we knew in the past was also, was not correct, was not fully correct at least.
So, people who are philosophically minded, people who are intellectual, they will not be able to reject science. But they will also be open to accept that science doesn't give us the complete picture. It's like a map.
A map can help us go along the road, but the map will not tell us the weather. The map will not tell us the mood of the people over there. And we, in our day to day life also, nobody lives as if science is the sole tool to all knowledge.
So, when people are not living like that, people are open to practically using other tools of knowledge. Rather than positioning scripture as a competitor to science, we show scripture as giving a different domain of knowledge. And then people can accept science where it is useful and focus on scripture for the ultimate purpose of life.
Then second point, within the fantastical descriptions also, within scripture, the essential themes are universal. The kind of emotions, situations and problems that people face are similar to what we face. And the essential teaching of scripture is how to resolve these problems.
And lastly, once we focus on the spiritual, then people can experience some elevation of consciousness. And instead of getting caught in irrelevant details, so instead of making, if somebody is not able to accept something fantastic in scripture, although it's not fantasy, rather than making that a faith issue, we focus on the universal life lessons and focus on the spiritual purpose. And once people connect with Krishna, they themselves either develop the faith to accept something which they earlier couldn't accept, or they realize that this is not so important and they will keep it in a car park till later understanding comes up.
Or they may themselves, using their intelligence, bring the two in a dialogue and make present understanding for themselves rather than present understanding for others. That would be like philosophical speculation, not mental speculation. So if we focus on the essence, if we focus on the spiritual, everything else will, by Krishna's grace, fall in place for those whom we are trying to connect with Krishna.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Is there any one last question?