Reconciling science and scripture 1 – talk and QA

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Chaitanya Chandru has been practising bhakti for many many years now He is a mentor, monk, speaker He is an author for 25 books on applied mindfulness and purpose for living His daily articles on Gita Daily keeps coming and he has given 4000 inspirational meditations on Bhagavad Gita till now He has invited guests for TEDx World Peace Conference, UNESCO, Intel Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Stanford Princeton University, Yale University Harvard University, MIT, Cambridge and what not He has given already 400 talks across 100 cities in 4 continents every year, not just till now, every year He is a spiritual consultant in Bhaktivedanta Hospital at Mumbai and he is the member of SAC Shastric Advisory Council which is the world’s topmost intellectual body in ISKCON that we have and Prabhuji is a member of that. So actually he was the first member of an Indian origin as far as I know So we are very fortunate to have Prabhuji’s association with us and let us try to understand his deep insights on the subject of science and spirituality and also after Prabhuji presents his talk, maybe for about one hour or so from now, after that we will open up for questions so all the students those who have questions, you can put that, you can choose to raise your hands and ask yourself if you can put your video on or otherwise you can put it on the chat box for me to ask on behalf of you Ok, so Prabhuji handing it over to you, you can kindly take it Hare Krishna I hope I am audible to everyone I am grateful to be here with all of you today I will begin with some prayers Om Gyanatimirandasya Gyananjanishalakaya Chakshurunmilatamhena Tasmai Shri Gurve Namaha Namao Vishnupadaya Krishna Prishtaya Bhutale Shrimate Bhaktivedanta Swami Itinamane Namaste Saraswati Deve Gauravani Pracharane Nirvishesha Hare Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna So grateful to be here with all of you today and today we will discuss on the topic of science and scripture how to harmonise them together So I will take this in three broad parts I will be sharing a powerpoint where I will explain certain things and we will have abundant time for question answers later so if you consider this is a broad framework when we look at scriptural wisdom some of scriptural knowledge may agree with science some may disagree with science and some may transcend science so although I have drawn this in such a way that these three seem to be equivalent or for some people what contradicts science may seem to be very large but actually if you study this it depends on where we are coming from and how we pursue things so for some people this third section of what contradicts this section of what contradict where scripture contradicts science may seem to be very large but as we grow spiritually and we mature in our understanding we will recognise that actually that section it will and the section that transcend science will become what matters most to us so let’s look at how this will work so now when I talk about agreeing with science or contradicting science or transcending science what exactly are we referring to so firstly when we talk about science and we talk about scripture and then we talk about their discourse their interaction their dialogue which may be confrontational at times now first of all how do we define science how do we define scripture how do we define a contradiction these themselves are very complex subjects the science although it’s a it’s a word which is very widely used science itself doesn’t have a very universally agreed definition some of the most prominent scientists like say the pioneering scientists Newton, Galileo and others they were not called they did not call themselves the scientists the word scientist itself came toward the came in the late 19th century late 19th century and it was in the late 19th century that it started gaining circulation so Newton called himself as a natural philosopher that means they observe nature and try to philosophise about what they observe in nature that’s the idea of natural philosophy so much of what was considered science by Newton is today not considered science much was not considered science is considered science today so these definitions themselves are very porous and we need to keep that in mind before arriving at any radical declarations that this contradicts science or this doesn’t contradict science that A is scientific and B is unscientific so first of all why does it matter for us it matters because there are some things in scripture which seem to raise serious questions so I’ll approach this first from the perspective of science and then we look at it from the perspective of specific points which may seem to contradict so let’s look at it so when there is a contradiction we could consider broadly three possibilities that science could be wrong, science could be incomplete and science and scripture could observe differ from different scales so now what do you mean by science is wrong, much of the history of science is laid with the debris of theories that were considered almost paradox science later on were shown to be not that true so for example more than a, if you go back to about a century ago the mainstream idea that was there about the universe especially the scientific community was that the universe has a steady state so this was that the universe is the way it has existed now that’s how it is forever that’s how it has been forever now the steady state theory was propagated and accepted in some ways to avoid confronting the big questions so generally whenever we are having a discussion one of the principles for having a reasonable discussion is not just to say this is right and this is wrong first to show okay this is what I am seeing okay and this is what you are seeing so why do the two things agree or disagree but it’s not just enough to say also important to say where am I standing when I am seeing this and why am I standing there so imagine a huge mountain peak so some people might be approaching the mountain peak from one side some people might be approaching the mountain peak from another side the two may say very different things but the key thing is that although they are seeing the same reality they are seeing it differently and where the three things what one is seeing where one is standing and why one is standing there if these three things are understood then there is a possibility for serious discussion where it is not that one person is simply trying to prove the other person wrong so what happens is science itself is while it talks about the nature of nature it also is contextual so certain theories which were considered right at one time later on they turn out to be they are rejected by the mainstream community so we could go into many many theories like this but the point here is not to criticise science it is only to contextualise science the very idea of progress means that what was known in the past we need to revise it, we need to improve it we need to refine it so the second is science is incomplete now why would science be incomplete? there could be specific theories which could be incomplete like say the big bang theory now the big bang theory of cosmic origins it it is one theory and it has been developed and revised and reworded in many different ways reimagined in various ways but the big bang theory still leaves two important questions unanswered whatever existed in the beginning that exploded where did that come from and what caused it to explode so to understand why this question is important let’s consider say an India Pakistan cricket match is going on and then the last ball India needs a sixer to win the match and the ball comes and it’s a short pitch ball and the batsman hits maybe it’s Virat Kohli who hits the ball for a straight six and then the whole country celebrates and then after that post match there is an interview and somebody asks how did you hit that sixer and say the Indian captain says it was by the law by Newton’s laws of motion really Newton’s laws of motion what do you mean by that so obviously we could calculate by Newton’s laws of motion the ball came at this speed it was hit at this speed and this is the way it made contact with the bat if it had made contact not in the centre but either in the top or the top edge or the bottom edge then it wouldn’t have gone across the boundary so we could use the Newton’s laws of motion to explain why the ball went across the boundary now that is one explanation and that is that is a valid explanation but is it the most valuable explanation is it the most relevant explanation at that point well not really Newton’s laws of motion can’t explain the skill of the batsman it can’t explain the precise hand to feet coordination, the sharp vision the presence of mind all that goes on into making a great batsman so the point I am making here is that just as for the ball going across the boundary it could be explained in terms of Newton’s laws of motion but that just because of explanation is valid doesn’t make it valuable just because something is correct doesn’t make it complete so science offers explanations and they are correct but they may not be complete because certain parameters are left out of the explanation so we will discuss each of these points more in detail as we move forward, the third possibility could be that things are different because they are being observed from different scales of observation that there are different levels to reality and the same thing can be observed from different levels so let’s look at these one by one now when we talk about reality what exactly do we mean by reality and how does it work so whenever there is data science is concerned with observation the observation is you can have three straight points, now based on those three points you could draw a straight line, we could draw hyperbola, we could draw a circle, we could do a parabola we could draw so many, we could draw arc, so which set of which kind of graph we draw based on the data that can vary very much similarly what science gives us essentially is observations and based on those observations certain certain conceptions are arrived at or sometimes the conceptions come first and observations confirm or disprove those conceptions but the point is even if the observations are valid they could be interpreted in different ways and that’s why the idea that scientific knowledge could be incorrect or incomplete this is not a criticism of science, this is just a historically contextualised cognition of how science works now when we say science is there something beyond science, when I say science is incomplete just like the batsman’s expertise we could measure the speed with which a bowler bowls a ball, we could measure how far the sixer goes outside the stadium but can we quantify the skill of the batsman we have various systems of rating players who is the top player for this year, top batsman, top bowler but that is about their performance can we rate talent itself can we rate calibre itself not necessarily, it’s very difficult with the world of science and reality so we can say what science studies is like this small yellow part below and there is a much bigger reality that science doesn’t study, now again when I say science doesn’t study something the point here is again not to criticise, it is to contextualise you see reality around us is extremely complicated if I just take this small glass now I could do a PhD thesis on a glass itself now what is the ideal size of the glass, what is the ideal weight, what is the ideal material and when you talk about ideal for whom is it ideal maybe for a small child below 10 something else is ideal for an athletic youth something else is ideal for an adult something else is ideal for an aged person something else might be ideal so something as simple as a glass can become almost unlimitedly complicated when we start studying it deeply so what happens whenever we study a subject we tend to focus we tend to focus on certain parameters so is this a good glass well it depends on what my purpose is, if my purpose is to maybe increase my fluid intake because I drink less water then maybe having a larger glass helps if so science when it began its study right from the time of Galileo and others science divided nature into two parameters or two we could say two properties what it called as primary properties and what it called as secondary properties so primary properties according to science are those that are measurable those that are quantifiable and then science had phenomenal success in relating these parameters through mathematical equations and that’s how all our technology has developed at the same time when focus goes on one thing focus goes off other things so the secondary parameters about such as say what are secondary parameters when we eat food at one level we are concerned okay how much calories is this particular thing that I am taking if we are diet conscious we might be conscious of that but that’s not the primary thing we are concerned about when we want to eat food we want to know how tasty it is we want to know how overall healthy it is so if you want to know how tasty it is we can’t have a tastometer how tasty it is taste is a very real experience for us the taste itself is not mathematically measurable the composition the ingredients can be scientifically analysed can be scientifically measured but taste is something higher this is a whole there is a whole subject in the philosophy of science called qualia qualia is the properties that we experience in nature what are they so when we if we consider medical science one of its primary purposes is to free people from disease and pain and despite all our best advances in science the advances are often impressive through medical science now we can know what is going on even the smallest cell in the most unreachable part of the human body and yet through it all we can’t through all those instruments we can’t actually measure pain we can’t quantify how much pain are you in well you can’t really say that while pain is a very real experience it’s not a mathematically quantifiable experience so why are we talking about this the point here is to contextualise science that science focusses on talking about the measurable properties of the nature and their mutual interactions and while it has been phenomenally successful in that there are things which are left out within this scientific world view and some of the things that are left out in such a world view are what we talked about just now are also important in our lived experience so unless we recognise that there is something higher that we all live for that there are other things that matter for us without that understanding our own understanding of reality will be fragmented so now what I am saying is not just something which I am saying because I am a spiritualist I was trained in science and engineering and this is a point which also thoughtful scientists have recognised so this is Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger saying this so I am amazed I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient it gives a lot of factual information puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart that really matters to us it cannot tell us a word about red and blue bitter and sweet physical pain and physical delight it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly good or bad god and eternity science sometimes pretends to answer questions in those domains but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously so this is a scientist not just an ordinary scientist this is a very prominent scientist speaking this and why is he speaking this? not to criticise science but to contextualise science science is a very powerful tool for acquiring knowledge and every tool has its purpose so he is recognising what is the purpose of this tool it gives us two things factual information and it puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order magnificently consistent order means that it enables us to say if we are flying from say Mumbai to New York then which flight will reach there in how much time where it will be at a particular time based on the speed of the aeroplane based on the speed of the winds all this can be predicted with a significant amount of accuracy and that is very helpful in planning things and executing things so in that sense it puts in a very consistent order the factual information is put in consistent order so science so you remember I talked about the first circle that there is something which agrees with science, something which contradicts science and something which transcends science so if we consider our lived reality we all use science definitely no doubt at the same time we all live with things much more than what science talks about what do I mean by that a couple of years in America seminar in a university multi-part seminar on overcoming fear so there we were discussing how people’s fears change over time so what were the top ten fears in the 18th century 19th century, 20th century, 21st century now as far as sociological data goes, you can find that out in the 21st century two new fears have come among the top ten one is the fear of terrorists and the second is the fear of rejection rejection means that when people want to form some relationships whether it is India or the rest of the world in the past most relationships, most marriages were formed with some kind of arrangement of commitment and irreversibility to the idea of marriage but today it is not there, so whenever people form a relationship there is a great fear that I may be rejected either I may be rejected and the relationship itself may not form or the relationship may start but just before it can arrive at the level of commitment it may be rejected, I may be rejected or sometimes it may be that after decades of being together, I may be rejected it’s a great fear so whenever people want to form a relationship they would like to know, does this other person really care for me or do they care only for my looks or for my bank account now with all our scientific advancement we cannot develop a love-o-metre say if a boy proposes to a girl, I love you please marry me the girl says let me take out a love-o-metre place it on your heart and see do you really care for me well, we can’t do that although love is a real experience and we really long to experience it it is again not mathematically quantifiable so even if say somebody lets us down somebody disappoints us, somebody betrays us how do you quantify betrayal, we can’t so the point is that although science and its product technology have radically reformulated, reshaped the world we live in still there is much in our life that cannot be reduced to science and that is not the deficiency of, that is not that is again not to criticise science that is again to remind that it is not that life is to be reduced to science rather science is to be placed within our life science exists because we exist, we as thinking humans we have developed science so in a sense this is just if you contextualise things, there will be things which are which transcend science and that sector of transcend science, that is where we focus in spirituality so science we could say is the study of matter spirituality is the study of what matters what matters what is really important in life, what will make my life meaningful, what will bring fulfilment in my life now what is it that I need to choose and what is I need to, what do I need to not do very important decisions in our life and we cannot do them simply based on science alone science can be one valuable source of guidance, but at the same time we all what really matters for us so science cannot tell what really matters for us and what really matters the analysis of that, the study of that is spirituality so which among various relationships, which relationships are most important for us, among our various values, what values are the most important for us, among our various goals or purposes in life, which are the most important for us, can they be placed in a hierarchy, how do we place them in a hierarchy all this is the domain of spirituality so if we study scripture, whether we study the Bhagavad Gita or we study the Srimad Bhagavatam, these are all focussing on what matters Arjuna when he is has to face a fratricidal war at that time he starts what matters really for me is it winning the kingdom or is it protecting my dynasty then he realises it’s not that simple that actually it’s not just my dynasty is there on the other side, my dynasty, my family is also there on this side and it’s not simply winning the kingdom it’s also ensuring that those who are vicious don’t gain what, so what really matters, so the Bhagavad Gita or the Mahabharata if you consider it large, the Mahabharata talks about advanced technology in the sense of some very sophisticated weapons which are used at that time, but they are analysing and discussing them is not the thrust of the Mahabharata that is definitely not the thrust of the Bhagavad Gita, the thrust of the Bhagavad Gita is, okay what is Dharma what am I meant to do what is the right thing for me to do, Dharma essentially Dharma can have many meanings but it is in the context of Arjuna what is the right thing to do for me so that is what the Bhagavad Gita discusses so spirituality is the study of what matters in the Srimad Bhagavatam Parishad Maharaj is cursed to die in seven days at that time the questions come up what should a person do when they are about to die so even today that question remains, if somebody gets a terminal diagnosis of cancer then often there are issues of quality of life and nowadays in end of life care in hospice care, spiritual health is considered almost of supreme importance because once a person is diagnosed that they are going to die and mainstream science doesn’t have much to offer to help them, except in palliative care, to help them deal with, to manage the pain then what does the person want to do, maybe they have three months to live six months to live, what do they want to do, that is where a chaplain comes in or some end of care end of life care consultant comes in and people do want to do something that is spiritually meaningful for them and that is the discussion of the Bhagavad Gita of the Srimad Bhagavatam so the study of matter versus the study of what matters so when we study scripture when we study books like the Bhagavad Gita or the Srimad Bhagavatam the third sector that which transcends science that is the primary thrust and with that thrust in mind, whatever is not we focus on that when we are studying scripture and to go toward that sector, those sections which agree with science we can use them as initial take off points they may trigger our interest they may help us gain some credibility they may help us nurture our faith but ultimately it is the section that transcends scripture that guides us how we can live that is what matters and then the quadrant where science and scripture contradict each other. How do we deal with that? Yes, there are different ways to deal with that and I will take one example to deal with that right now and then we will move on to question answers so till now I talked about interaction of science and spirituality and I focused on how there is a domain beyond science and that matters for us and that is what spirituality and spiritual text primarily discuss so let’s look at something over here so one of the more disturbing aspects of scripture is its cosmology so the Bhagavad Puran for example describes cosmology that seems to be quite strange and some people might say unbelievable and Shila Prabhupada has also made certain statements about the moon which can seem very provocative so we could say did man go to the moon or not isn’t this a place where science and scripture contradict not exactly why is that? because if we consider what Shila Prabhupada was primarily saying his point was that the moon is a different level of moon exists at a different level of reality and those without the proper qualification cannot enter there it’s like now if somebody wants to go to America they need to get they need to get go through the proper immigration channels they need to get the visa and they can enter into America after that now some people a large number of people can break through the immigration system and especially from southern America from Mexico and others lot of immigrants go in there that’s true but that’s because it’s a more human system which is fallible but those systems which are governed by higher beings they are not that fallible so the point was not that we can’t go to the moon the point was that there is a different vision of the moon the moon is not just seen as one another object of the many objects that are existing in space which are just filled with empty space the moon is seen as a higher planet so why would somebody see like that what is the point over there so here we talk about perspectives so scale of observation if you consider say this is chalk powder and this is coke powder let me take now if you mix both of them together we will get grey powder now if you look at this grey powder under a microscope what will you see you won’t see any grey powder you will see actually white particles and black particles so what is it actually is it white particles and black particles or is it a grey powder it depends on the scale of observation it depends on what scale we are observing it so sometimes there are some videos on youtube which talk show about how even the most captivating face most beautiful face if it is seen under a microscope it appears to be filled with valleys and mountains and peaks and all kinds of undulating surfaces what looks very smooth and shiny to our normal eyes doesn’t look that way under a microscope so the scale of observation changes perception substantially so the point of the Bhagavatam if we consider what is the point of the Bhagavatam the Bhagavatam is not being spoken to give Parikshit Maharaj a PhD in cosmology that is not the interest of Parikshit Maharaj also Parikshit Maharaj interest is ok I am going to die soon and I want to fix my mind on transcendence I want to fix my mind on Krishna and for that purpose what do we do what is done Shukde Goswami gives him a vision of things where how everything how there is latent spirituality everywhere that is what is being shown so I was in America and I met actually Canada and I met a devotee over there whose friend is a property developer and this friend from America he is basically a golf course developer so he came from Canada to Vrindavan to because there was a apparently the government over there wanted to develop golf courses and he came to Vrindavan to present a tender to look at the property and to give his proposal everything like that so he came to Vrindavan he went to Govardhan because Govardhan is the sacred mountain associated with Krishna Leela and he went there but he didn’t visit a single temple over there his interest although he came to the most sacred of places in the world his interest was totally commercial to not spiritual and all that he saw there okay this land is good this land is not so good here we need to flatten the mountain over here we have to do this we have to do that so what happens is our intention determines our vision this is so there were many things there are many many other things many spiritual things in Vrindavan to see but he didn’t see them he didn’t seek them he didn’t see them now if you go back to my earlier point of when science focusses on primary properties not secondary properties or what science considers secondary properties so take that further and we look at the Bhagavatam and we look at the science so science even when scientists space scientists want to study the moon they are approaching it from the perspective of maybe another place to stay another place to mine some minerals another place to say plant the flag of the earth so it is it is primarily seen with a particular perspective so whereas spirituality talks of things from a different perspective so now what is the reality both realities could coexist because there are different scales of perception so at a physical level it may be possible that somebody might go to the moon go to the moon and come back it may not be we don’t know but the point is when Prabhupada talks about the moon mission his focus is that if you want to experience the moon at a higher level we need to expand our consciousness to that higher level we need to without expanding that consciousness to a higher level without gaining the appropriate qualifications in terms of karma that lead to the expansion of consciousness even if we are able to physically go to the moon we won’t perceive the moon so one example to illustrate this point of how qualification or Adhikar as the word in Sanskrit matters suppose somebody is working on a mainframe computer it has incredible processing power phenomenal amounts of memory and different people are at different terminals on that mainframe computer and different operators different people working on that computer will have different levels of access somebody is a data entry operator they may have access only to one small drive or one set of files within that somebody who is a manager they may have a slightly higher access somebody who is a CEO they may have full access why the difference it’s the same computer and they all may say that we are working on the same computer but somebody who is say a data entry operator not only will they not be able to access certain files certain files you can see the folder you can see the file but you don’t have the permission to access it but in some cases it may be that those files are hidden from their view itself so when they are hidden from the view itself what it means is that they can’t be seen at all their existence itself is not perceived so why is that because they don’t have that qualification similarly when the Bhagavatam describes certain cosmology it is Parikshit Maharaj is asking Shukdev Goswami now Parikshit Maharaj is not asking Shukdev Goswami to simply elaborate what he can see with his eyes he wants to see a higher vision ultimately he wants to see Krishna he wants to remember Krishna and if you see the Bhagavatam’s cosmology in the fifth canto it’s not so much about cosmographical specifics it’s more about how throughout the universe there is dharma and devotion and therefore Parikshit Maharaj you also should practise dharma and devotion so the whole idea is the study of what matters and so the Bhagavatam’s cosmology and modern cosmology are they contradictory no they are from different scales of perception somebody may say this is all just made up this is just something which you thought up to actually conceal the point that this is all unscientific but just to maintain your faith in all these things you are saying that there is a higher level of perception and you need to expand your consciousness but because it contradicts science it all is false well could be but maybe it’s not that simple why not because even within Vedic cosmology itself there have been different cosmological sources of knowledge so within Vedic cosmology there is what is called as Puranic cosmology and there is Jyotishya cosmology so Jyotishya cosmology Puranic cosmology gives us perspective from a celestial or divine perspective it is a higher vision of the universe Jyotishya cosmology gives us perspective from our level and there are books like Surya Siddhanta which give remarkably precise information about the cosmos far before modern science discovered it so for example if we consider the distance the cosmic distances say what modern science measurement talks about as distance between the earth and moon we will see that to here 252710 miles versus 253000 miles it’s remarkably similar similarly earth’s diameter is 7840 miles compared with 7926 miles which is again remarkably similar so this now many of the same scholars if you know if you study Indian astronomy there is Aryabhatta there is Bhaskaracharya there are many other prominent astronomers they studied the Jyotishya Shastras and they also knew of Puranic cosmology but although they were aware of the differences between the two and even in our own tradition there were the great saintly commentators who used Jyotishya for astrological purposes and they also studied Bhagavatam cosmology they were aware that the two differ but one of the characteristics of an expanded consciousness is comfort with contradiction if you forget everything from this talk remember this one point that one of the characteristics of an expanded consciousness is comfort with contradiction what do you mean how can I be comfortable with contradiction well yes we can be comfortable with contradiction because we understand we understand that humility is not just a religious or a physical idea it also has to be intellectual idea that means humility in the religious domain means I believe that there is a God who is far more powerful than me humility in the physical domain means I may offer my frustrated obeisances but humility in the intellectual domain means that reality is far more complicated far more complex than what I know so not only what I know maybe what is more complex than what I can know so yes there can be different perspectives and people who are wiser than me have seen those two perspectives and they have accepted in modern physics I’ll conclude with this particular example for this point now that in this comfort with contradiction is something which characterises even you go into any branch of knowledge if you go deep inside it to function you have to become comfortable with contradiction consider physics itself if you go deep into physics there are two prominent theories there is quantum physics and there is relativity and the two are significantly different some people may say well they are violently contradictory their vision of matter itself is very different is it that in quantum physics holds that everything actually only when there is an observer then things fall into place Einstein undoubtedly one of the greatest brains of the last century if not the greatest scientific brains he couldn’t digest the whole idea of quantum physics and he said that I would like to believe that the moon continues to exist even if I am not looking at it you say isn’t that obvious obviously the moon continues to exist but actually quantum physics actually everything is simply waves and when there is an observer then things coagulate things are pursued as things now this is an extremely simplified bare bones analysis of extremely complicated problem but the point I am making here is that even within science there are different perspectives and the theories which come from different perspectives and which works well both work for certain domains of reality quantum physics works for certain domains of reality relativity works and how to bring the two of them together sciences struggled and has not made much headway in doing that scientists as great as Stephen Hawking said that man’s quest he put the inability to reconcile the two positively and he said I am happy to announce that humanity’s quest for knowledge will never end we will never be able to reconcile these two Stephen Weinberg another Nobel laureate scientist said that we have made remarkable progress over the last several decades but the more we come to know the further we seem to go from the solution so currently how does science operate it operates on pragmatism pragmatism means what works so for certain domains of reality where quantum physics work although quantum physics doesn’t make any sense in terms of the way we empirically perceive the world but it works incredibly well and quantum physics is used extensively now we are moving towards quantum computing which could be a significant leap in computing power and speed so there are certain areas where relativity works and where it works that’s what is used so humility means to not claim that we need to get an exhaustive reconciliatory understanding of every aspect of reality before we move forward we are finite beings and we want all the wisdom that we can get to make our life as meaningful and as joyful as possible to do as much good as we can during our short lifetimes for ourselves and for the world around us so if that is the purpose then science and spirituality can both be invaluable resources for us if you want to reconcile the two not philosophically because that is extremely difficult but pragmatically in terms of how we function in our lives we could say that science primarily through technology science can make things better science can give us faster phones can give us faster planes science can make things better and spirituality can make people better spirituality can help us understand what really matters in our lives and to focus on that and to grow thereby spirituality can help us increase our virtues to improve our good habits to free ourselves from whatever vices we have spirituality can empower us internally science can empower us externally and together if we use both science and spirituality then by making things better externally by making ourselves better internally we can contribute to making a better world so I’ll summarise what I spoke today I spoke on reconciling science and scripture I spoke primarily with three main points first is we talked about the domain three quadrants scriptural knowledge something which agrees something which disagrees and something which contradicts so why might there be a contradiction and why might there be a disagreement that was our primary focus so is there something that transcends so I talked about how science is a progressive body of knowledge and that’s why things which are right now may be considered wrong in the future things which were considered right in the past are considered wrong now so then we discussed about the domains of knowledge that science is the study of matters spirituality is the study of what matters study of matter means science focusses on certain primary properties told the quote of Arvind Schrodinger that it focusses measurable parameters of the observed universe and the mathematical correlations between them but in that process much that is vital for us is left aside I talked about panometer, lavometer or even tastometer taste, love, pain these are very important experiences for us some of them we want some of them we don’t want we don’t want pain we want love we want taste but these we can’t quantify so there is much that exists beyond the domain of science so the laws of gravity can explain why a stroke went across the boundary but it can’t explain it completely it’s a correct but not a complete explanation so that section which transcends science is the primary thrust of the spiritual text like the Bhagavad Gita or the Srimad Bhagavatam and then when there is a contradiction how do we look at it so I talk about contradiction can happen because there are different scales of perception so one contradiction is because certain things are beyond the domain of science there seems to be a contradiction it’s not exactly a contradiction it’s just there two different domains of reality we perceive but even when there is seems to be a contradiction it could be because there are different scales of perception so powder can seem grey to the naked eye but it can be seen as white and brown particles under microscope similar the universe to the scientific eye the moon and the various objects can seem to be just empty space that is waiting for waiting to be conquered by human beings but to a more expanded consciousness it’s seen differently it’s seen as permeated with life which we can’t see just like if we have a mainframe computer we may not be able to see what’s there in that computer if we don’t have the required access that access depends on the level of our consciousness and is this idea of higher consciousness and higher access just a way to to explain away that what is actually unscientific and valid no because that same tradition also gave empirical knowledge that is comparable with what scientific knowledge science modern science has acquired but it gave it before so there were teachers in the past great scholars who knew about these two different things Jyotisha Shastra and the Puranic Cosmology Jyotisha Cosmology and they were comfortable with contradiction so humility in the intellectual domain means that maybe we don’t know and maybe we can’t know rather than focussing on trying to know exhaustively we focus on what works effectively and that’s what physics adopts so quantum physics and relativity are not so easily reconcilable but even scientists are pragmatic so we too can be pragmatic and we use science as a resource for improving things in the outer world and we use spirituality as a resource for improving things in the inner world and by combining both we all can contribute to making a better world thank you very much Hare Krishna so are there any questions or comments yes Prabhu so I will ask questions yes sure so the first question is from a student from HBTU Kanpur how, where and why did this seed of atheism build up so much just in recent age almost 200 years ago by the scientific community ok what was the last part about scientific community can you repeat the last I will repeat the question how, where and why did this seed of atheism build up so much just in the recent age almost 200 years by the scientific community ok so how did atheism grow and did it grow because of scientific community well it’s very difficult to know what is a causal relationship there is causation and there is correlation so what is the difference between the two it has been found that people with bigger hands have bigger vocabularies hey that’s strange whenever I speak this in the class everyone starts looking at their hands well people’s hand size got to do with vocabulary well what happens is people with bigger hands are older people with smaller hands are say kids so an average kids vocabulary and average adults vocabulary is going to be definitely different so there is it’s true that bigger hands and bigger vocabulary are go together but it’s not a causal relationship it’s a simply a correlation and there is something else which is causing both so similarly yes science has advanced in the last two centuries and also religion and faith in God has gone down now is this too is the causal relationship has scientific advancement led to atheism so that or is it a correlation that’s what we need to carefully understand so the science is itself a tool for acquiring knowledge like R.V. Schrodinger said that science cannot talk about God it doesn’t tell us anything about God now when scientists like Galileo or Newton they talked about God that was their personal we could say conclusion based on their scientific observation in science there is a certain process certain criteria for proving certain things and by definition that which is spiritual is beyond empirical validation Adhokshaja is one of the names of the Supreme Lord so the study of scientific knowledge or the study of the universe through science can lead many people to believe in God it can also lead many people to disbelieve in God so science itself may or may not be the cause science is simply a tool for looking at the world in a particular way over the last few centuries what has happened is that society has changed in extraordinary ways there has been industrialisation, urbanisation there has been fragmentation of social structures like joint families and therefore religious traditions and spiritual wisdom was passed down through certain channels and those channels got disrupted in the west now it’s almost half of the children who grow up they grow up in between one fourth to one half of children grow up in single parent families so there is only one parent, usually it’s a mother sometimes it’s a single father then just taking care of the child becomes a big thing, teaching them religious values it’s very very difficult so along with that what also happened so basically one reason why atheism increased was the structures that that the systems and the structures that passed down spirituality and theism they were disrupted another reason was that religious extremism or the consequences of extremism of any kind became very prominent sometimes the idea is that religion causes violence and it is true that religion has caused violence at the same time if you consider the first world war, second world war they were not fought on religious grounds they were fought on ideological grounds or simply property and power so but what happened is that over the last few centuries religious extremism has not only increased but it has also gained increased visibility and influence because of technology because of technology religious extremism has gained increased reach now terrorists in some part of the middle east can blow up things in America or wherever they want and through social media we get to know about all that so very easily and even before social media through television so what has happened because of this in the public mind religion is associated with extremism now religion inspires many many people to live more charitably more compassionately more responsibly if people are religiously inclined they stay committed to their for example their marriage vows and there is quite strong strong connection between the two statistically has been found out but so overall religion inspires people to do good things religion in the name of religion people also do bad things but the bad things get a lot more press and that’s why because in the public eye religion has been associated with extremism so that has also led to the increase in atheism now has science itself played a role in that so I talked about the sociological changes I talked about the changes in the religious landscape also another aspect is also that science itself has it led to atheism well science has been misused by atheists to voice their atheistic ideology on people in today’s world most people think that if I want to be scientific I can’t believe in concepts like God or soul well why not there is nothing in science there is no scientific theory that can explicitly disprove the existence of God or the existence of soul but they are not within the domain of scientific study the domain of scientific study can be expanded and maybe they will be included but they are not within the domain of scientific study as science is defined by mainstream in the mainstream academy today so there are a significant number of scientists even Nobel laureates and not just old time Nobel laureates even contemporary Nobel laureates who do believe in science however again in the public perception the idea has come that science is associated with atheism or rather to be scientific I need to be atheistic if I am believing in stuff like God maybe I am not being scientific so that is the misconception that we need to counter there are many scientists who believe in God and sometimes they talk about their belief but there are many atheists who talk about God but in the negative terms that God doesn’t exist and unfortunately in today’s world this is the last factor I will conclude with for answering this question that secularism was originally defined as impartiality toward religion but secularism has now become not impartiality toward religion but indifference toward religion that means in today’s world if there is a Christian scientist or a Muslim scientist or a Hindu scientist if they are talking in their classrooms they cannot talk about their religious beliefs because you have to be secular but on the other hand an atheistic scientist can talk about atheism and because apparently atheism is not considered to be a religion but atheists can be as dogmatic and as intolerant towards religion as some of the most fundamentalist religions can be toward other atheists can be towards other religions or toward atheists so because of secularism in the public eye scientists often don’t talk about their faith whereas atheists talk about their faith and there are religious scientists and there are irreligious scientists so irreligious scientists or non-religious scientists talk about their non-religion, non-belief whereas religious scientists don’t talk about their belief so that’s how we see that atheism has increased if science is studied systematically then there is no reason why science should lead to atheism I hope that answers the question yes true another question is from students of IIT Hyderabad we know that entropy is associated with every matter can it be associated with the expansion of universe too is there any spiritual angle associated with the entropy and universe expansion ok I presume is there any association between the expansion of the universe and entropy well we could look at this from a perspective and we could look at also from a perspective of spirituality so the idea of entropy can be used to in general talk about the point that there is no way a self organising universe could sustain itself forever in general the idea is that things degenerate over time so if there is a certain amount of order in a universe in any particular system that order will go down now for that order to be maintained or for that order to be improved how does that happen so the idea of entropy is sometimes associated with the idea of some kind of cosmic design because things they degenerate over time and if they are degenerating then they naturally things move to a degeneration then for them to have been in a state where they were not degenerated where they had a high level of integrity and energy and functionality how did that come about so it is sometimes used as an argument to point toward some higher intelligence or higher aspects within the observed physical universe now the expansion of the universe is something which is accepted by mainstream science today and the idea is we have seen distant objects moving further away from us and we have seen certain other things like that so there is also the cosmic background echo so the expansion of the universe itself is not something which is which has intrinsically any spiritual implications that within the spiritual or the scriptural conception of the universe there is expansion, there is contraction there is expansion, there is contraction so I would say that whether whether entropy points to a higher intelligence or whether entropy is associated with the expansion of the universe or not these are issues that scientists can debate theorise and come to their conclusions they don’t have any direct spiritual implications either way they can be used to point to the so the idea of entropy can be used to point toward a higher existence and whether the universe is expanding or not that could be both the expansion of the universe and its non-expansion or even its contradiction can be accommodated within the scriptural worldview does that answer your question yes the next question is from the students of IIC Bangalore the question is that how does the soul come in the mother’s womb in the scriptures it is written that the father semen and it comes through grains is there any scientific understanding for the same which matches the scriptures okay so how does the soul come into the say the mother’s womb in the embryo in general when scriptures describe any material phenomena usually that description is indicative it is not always exhaustive what do I mean by indicative versus exhaustive indicative means this is one way it can happen it is not that this is the only way it happens so when it is said in the Upanishads that it is through in the Bhagavatam also it is said that through the man’s semen the soul comes into the mother’s womb yes that is that is one possible trajectory is that the only trajectory there is no reason for the soul to be limited that way there is just like I earlier talked about the the skill of say of Virat Kohli hitting a sixer and the laws of physics laws of motion both can be complementary explanations for why the ball went across the boundary so similarly the physical and the spiritual explanations for the origin of not the origin of life for the conception and procreation can exist together so there is at a biological level certain things happen biological level the sperm enters into the enters into the into the mother’s womb and then to be mother’s womb and then there is a union there is a zygote that is formed so now if we look at it from a biological perspective we see that even the semen that is there contains many sperms so if we look at from biological perspective further which of those sperms actually reach the destination it’s a perilous journey and many of them don’t make it to the destination even after they make it to the destination after that how many survive and how much moves forward so even among when there are twins so twins can be either identical or non-identical monozygotic or bi-zygotic or polyzygotic so what happens is that that means one zygote is formed and then it splits into two or sometimes two zygotes are formed that means say one sperm unites with an egg and then it splits into two and there are two twins or there are two sperms that unite with two zygotes and then they grow so now what does this mean even if we can say there is one sperm does one sperm have to contain only one soul there could be some sperms that don’t contain any souls at all there could be some sperms that contain more than one soul and then they unite and those two souls occupy those two bodies so those two bodies in the case of monozygotic twins and we also so there are lots of factors and lots of subtleties involved so if we consider that it is also said that when a man and a woman unite the consciousness determines the kind of child that will be born now if that is the case then what does it mean that there are so many sperms entering into the womb so then is it that only the sperm that has the consciousness which matches both the consciousness of the mother and father that sperm impregnates and other consciousness other sperms do not form a zygote there could be many sperms that enter this particular sperm survives and others don’t survive so these are all these are all complicated questions and in general when we talk about the interface between the spiritual and the material it’s more important to focus on the principles than on the mechanisms why? because the spiritual domain itself is subtle and so how the subtle interacts with the gross that itself again becomes subtle there is certain gross effects that we can see but the mechanism by which those gross effects come about that is something very complicated so here what are we looking at just like now to give us another example of this subtle and gross interaction the complexity of their interactions so currently the world is facing a pandemic viruses actually they are a good example of the complexity is the virus living or non-living it’s wherever there is life there is soul but viruses on themselves don’t exhibit any life but when they have a host they start exhibiting life that means the soul needs a biological medium for functioning and the soul doesn’t have a biological medium, suitable biological medium it can’t function at the physical level once the soul acquires a biological medium it starts functioning so so now currently when scientists study is this pandemic if somebody has been infected are they likely to get infected once again by corona if they are not likely to get infected can a person who has been infected and who has recovered will that person be a passive carrier or as the corona count gone down so much that that person will not be infected again or will not pass it on to others these are all questions which we are still grappling we don’t have answers so when the subtle impacts the gross normally subtle is difficult to understand subtle impacts the gross is also difficult to understand the broad principle is that the soul but if we consider the complexity of the interactions that means that it’s not just that those pathways alone are there that there are there are various other kinds of there are various nuances going on over there and we can’t really control we can’t control that interaction sufficiently to know it specifically this is the only way or these are the only ways things happen the subtle can interact with the gross in many different ways the soul can leave the body in many different ways normally it is said if a person is in elevated consciousness then the soul will leave through one of the upper holes that means through the eyes through the ears, through the nose the nostrils if the soul is not in elevated consciousness the soul will depart from the lower holes to excretory organs and it will go towards a lower region.
Now this is a broad trajectory but is this absolute the soul can even break through the skull and go out if it’s required so there are certain indicative trajectories that are given but these are not exhaustive does it answer your question yes Prabhuji next question is from Shubham Prabhuji you talked about there are two types of fear which has added in 21st century, fear of terrorism and fear of rejection but if we see things in the history, there were much bigger fights and killing that happened before so how do we understand that those fights were different from terrorism that you are connecting to now ok, that’s because generally in the past even when there were fights, civilians were not targeted, this was definitely not in India when Megasthenes and others came after Haldir they found one aspect of warfare in India was civilians, farmers would go on doing their farming while soldiers were passing by and wars would take place, so in general civilians would not be targeted and even if civilians were targeted, it was occasional for maybe looting them at least that was the broad code of honour in the past even among warriors so now if you consider at least if you consider Mahabharata, the code of honour was that you should fight with equals who are equipped and alert but terrorists do exactly the opposite they attack their combatants who attack civilians who have no weapons and who are just going about their normal life so the amount of fear caused by terrorism is far greater than the amount of fear caused by wars because of the heavy level of unpredictability and brutality that is associated with it Any other questions? Yes Prabhu Prabhuji, this question has come from GGD students from Girigobaratham voice Are aliens real or fiction? Is there any scientific proof? Okay, so are aliens real or fictional? I would say, I would answer this in three broad parts. First is the existence of aliens second is the possibility of perceiving aliens and third is the validity of the current claims of perception three distinct things. Now firstly aliens itself is a model term and often people have the idea of some green beings with some eyes popping up or something like that but if we consider that broadly speaking is there life outside the earth, beyond the earth the Vedic scriptures, they definitely say yes there is life in various parts of the universe and Sri Prabhupada would give a simple argument sometimes that if you look on the earth, even in your house there is a small crack in the wall sometimes you see ants coming out of there so this earth is teeming with life so why would God create so much space and there is so much universe and nothing in it so what science can honestly say at this stage by honestly I don’t imply that science is being dishonest if it doesn’t say this, all that I am implying is that there are certain claims that are valid based on what we know and there are others that are extrapolations all that science can tell us is that life as we know it has not been found on the universe as far as we have observed it science always gives us very qualified knowledge life as we know it means what that we don’t really when we are looking for life even if say we go to the moon, what do we look for have we combed every single inch of the moon no we look for certain indicators we look for the temperature we look for water, we look for oxygen but are these the sole preconditions or are these essential preconditions for life to be possible there are beings called extremophiles which live in extreme conditions so deep inside the deep below the ocean in the ocean beds have been found certain beings which actually breathe in nitrogen dioxide how can you live like that, they live they never see the sun and still they live on so all that we can say through science is that life as we know it has not been found in the universe as far as we observe it from the spiritual perspective the soul itself is indestructible soul is not affected by soul itself is not destroyed or damaged by any material condition so if the soul is given an appropriate body then it can live in any material condition so we could say that in different parts of the universe it’s possible that souls may be existing in bodies in bodily forms that we are not aware of so that’s the first part so instead of aliens does life exist on other planets yes the Vedic sages do say yes now can that life be perceived well it depends if you look at the Mahabharata or Ramayana if you consider this is the terrestrial level then above us is the celestial level where the godly beings stay and below us is the subterranean level where the ungodly beings stay and of course beyond it all is the transcendental level so generally when beings from the celestial or the subterranean level come it’s not that we can immediately perceive them say for example when the sacrifices would be performed to appease the gods so only if the gods would be very pleased would they come and make themselves visible to the earthlings the earthly beings who are offering them sacrifices otherwise just by the smooth uninterrupted performance of the sacrifice they would infer that the gods are pleased so it’s not that even if the gods came to us the godly beings if they came to us we would be able to perceive them and the same can apply to demonic beings also who can also make themselves invisible to human perception so is it possible for us to perceive well maybe not it depends on various factors including the will of other beings and our level of consciousness also so now thirdly as far as what has been perceived well alien sightings have been you can classify them into some categories there are claimed perceptions of flying objects that exhibit behaviour not normally seen in human aeroplanes then there are claims of alien abductions and there are basically you could these are two of the most hyped claims or now alien abductions they are many alien abductions have been strongly debunked not all but many there are some Ivy League professors also who studied this field and they began as sceptics but over the period of time as they studied they found that more and more thoughtful people so the idea of alien abductions are some aliens come and say somebody’s just going in a car and suddenly their car suddenly stops for no reason and then somebody comes and takes them and the idea of aliens abducting has also been romanticised in Bollywood and there are various kinds of strange beings that come because of the union between humans and aliens so it has gone to the domain of widely popularised science fiction but not just necessarily flying saucers but flying bodies that seem to defy the laws of gravity as we know them there have been a significant number that have been cited and many security agencies also the American Defence and others they have cited them.
One of ISKCON’s leaders Devamrit Swamy has written a book called Searching for Vedic India there he gives a good amount of evidence for aliens and Sadaput Prabhu Dr. Richard L. Thompson he was also a prominent ISKCON scientist he has written a book called Alien Identities where also he talks significantly about parallels between the description of the movements of these unidentified flying objects and the description of certain flying objects in the Mahabharata. Say for example there was a demon Shalva who attacked Dwarka and he had a flying aeroplane and its movements and the description of movements of UFOs and UFO sightings there are significant similarities between the two. So we can say that some alien sightings could be true and rather than debating whether particular sightings are true or not we can look at the bigger issue and recognise that the broad Vedic world view does give a lot of room for aliens to exist and occasionally to interact with us also.
Okay. Do ghosts exist? Well I have a website called Spiritual Scientist where if you go to search for ghosts you will find a whole article on that. And I also have a full mass on this topic.
I will just quickly share a powerpoint to explain the idea of ghosts. So you see here there is a being as you know there is a soul and a subtle body and there is a gross body. Normally we live.
Now what happens in the case of death? Death is the soul along with the subtle body leave and normally after this the soul and subtle body go to a next body. Sometimes because of various reasons the soul may not get a next body. So when the soul doesn’t get a next body that’s what is called as a ghost.
So basically it is disembodied soul and some of these can enter into some other body. This is called as possession. So possession means there is the original person was there but that person has become alien some person entered into that body and taken control of that body.
So there is possessed person and the possessing person possessing ghost. So now do ghosts exist from the Vedic perspective? Yes. Ghosts from contemporary research and there has been a significant amount of research that has been done.
Alfred Wallace was a prominent scientist who worked as Richard Dawkins sorry as Charles Darwin and he he was also the co-founder of the theory of evolution and he did a lot of other research. So one of his study was in supernatural beings and he said that I don’t ask my leaders for belief. All that I ask them for is doubt in the infallibility of their current understandings of your current understandings.
So he brings about a significant amount of research So if ghosts exist, how do we really prove their existence? So as I said science focusses on mathematical measurable parameters and it’s difficult to mathematically measure the effects of subtle beings. So broadly speaking ghosts can interact with humans in three ways and it’s called apparition, communication and possession. So apparition means some people just see a form so maybe somebody in some loud one has passed away and then they see suddenly their form appearing being there for some time and maybe communicating with them and going away.
But just suddenly when you see something it’s called apparition. Then communication is when they tell something so communication can happen that ghostly beings tell something or there are something called like planchets, there are mediums who communicate with deceased spirits and through them certain information comes to people. And third is possession.
So now among these apparitions they are very difficult to scientifically establish because the person has them. If you see a large number of people also had a particular vision. You could always dismiss it as like mass hallucination.
That’s what the sceptical approach would be. But with respect to communication we could look at the verifiability of the information, the possibility whether that information could have been got by other means or not. And there’s a devotee scientist Dr. Karma Prabhu, Dr. Michael Cremo, he’s written a book called Human Devolution where he analyses various cases of possessions and he has shown that of communication in possessions and so when communication happens, there are many cases where there’s just no reasonable way where the person could have got that information which the medium through the medium was it was conveyed through a via planchet.
And with respect to possessions, modern psychology sometimes calls them as personality, split personality disorders. Now are all split personality disorders because of possession? No. Do all possessions necessarily lead to split personality disorders? These are very complicated things.
But the point is that the same person doesn’t just behave in different ways. That’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which is Robert Leeds’ fiction. But there is sometimes, there is a case of a woman in Nagpur.
She lived in a small village near Nagpur. And once she was bitten by a snake, and this is well documented in scientific research, if you read human evolution. She was bitten by a snake and suddenly she started she started speaking Bengali.
And started speaking in a very different voice. Now nobody in that village was from Bengal. She had never been to Bengal.
She had never learned a word of Bengali. Suddenly she was speaking fluent Bengali. So where did she get that from? So we could infer that there was some kind of possession.
But that’s an inference. Now in some cases it may be true, some cases personality disorders, some cases it might just be people pretending for some ulterior motives. We don’t know.
So again, in principle, ghosts do exist. In practise, is it that every person who feels haunted or who acts in strange ways is actually haunted? We can be a little, we need to be a little sceptical about the actual cases and observe them very carefully before we arrive at any particular conclusion. Okay.
Thank you very much. Shall we stop here? Yes. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your time. So dear students, you saw how beautifully Prabhuji could answer so many scientific questions with a spiritual perspective. Here I have put on the chat box two of his websites, thespiritualscientist.com and githaredity.com and the bit.ly site is a shorthand site for his books, which is available on Amazon.
And tomorrow also we will be having question answers, which all of you can kindly put on this portal, which I have put on this chat box. So this is the same portal which you use for all the question answers. Please put your question answers, which Prabhuji will answer tomorrow based on scientific understandings.
Thank you so much students. Thank you very much Chaitanya and Prabhu. We will seek for your association tomorrow also and for next week, Saturday also at 2.30 to 4 pm.
Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. Chai.