Science & Spirituality How to get the best of both, Tirupati – Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Thank you for coming today and today we are going to discuss on the topic of science and spirituality or science or spirituality That is it is science and spirituality or is it science or Spirituality do we need to choose between the two science and spirituality or science or spirituality? So before I start I’d like to ask you What these two words mean to you? So when you hear the word science, what does it mean to you? And then we’ll talk when you hear the word spirituality. What does it mean to you? so any thoughts When somebody says, oh, this is scientific or is it scientific? This is this is science So what does what comes to your mind? Sorry, logic. So science is associated with logic Logic is science observes nature’s try to find patterns by the patterns.
Okay. This effect is coming. This cause is there So logic has many aspects of one of the thing is cause-effect connection and then through cause-effect science comes up with laws So science is associated.
It’s logical anything else Sorry So Practically experienced So what is practically experience the benefits? Is that right? What is practically experienced? I mean I understand what is The bird practically experience is clear. But what is in your mind when you say what is practically experienced? Okay, so then you are saying visible Because experience and visibility are two different things. Are you talking about visibility? It’s visible then it’s not a criticism.
I just trying to understand you’re talking about visible. Is it? so Okay, at least you can say science starts with the visible You know it is Science involves a Newton saw an apple falling So it starts with visible phenomenon. Of course science also goes beyond the visible because every law that is proposed there is There is the law itself is invisible.
Nobody sees the law of gravity We can see the effect of the law of gravity object may fall So we could say there is a visible observation We can also say that there are visible objects that are observed But that is you can say this is it’s partly not all of science is visible Science also deals with objects that are not visible subatomic particles, for example. Yes anything else? Sorry Yeah, there is proof Now when you when you say proof, what does it mean? Basically when you say the word proof? Okay, so proof comes through experiments So Okay, so science is associated with its proof and proof comes through you find it out one way is through experiments, so That This is interesting because it’s a very important point See what can science prove and what is not proven science? So the idea is that the especially if there a particular theory is true. Nobody has seen the law of gravity But the experiments we can show the effects so for example a few One or two decades ago, there are this big sensation about the God particle being discovered called the Higgs boson So now the God particle has been discovered now, actually it is a very complicated experiment inside a supercollider where They inferred the existence of God or the God particle what they call as a God particle Based on a particular set of Observations which came as a result of the experiments So you can never prove the existence of a subatomic particle directly But if it existed this would be the effect and this effect is there therefore we can say this exists So the proof is there in terms of the effects Do anything else Okay science has limitations I think only when you become spiritual you think about limitations of science, but what when you use the word limitations? What do you mean by it? Yes There are limitations Now, what is the technical word that every object or every instrument you use it has a threshold Now if I’m measuring something with a with a ruler I cannot get millimetre accuracy So the threshold of measurement is there and so there are limitations of every instrument how much it can measure beyond that there are limitations of Whether certain things are measurable also or not So that is that what you are referring to by limitations or what are you referring to? So there are limitations first in measurement Like that is more associated with instruments Hmm we can develop more sophisticated instruments.
You might be able to measure it, but then there’s a limitation that there is measurability itself Can everything we put in measurable mathematical terms? Is it it so? There is much in life that is not measurable for example our emotions They are important for all of us. So if A bomb blast causes a bomb blast to happen somewhere Or a scientific experiment requires a particular cost Now the cost we can put in financial terms but if that if some nuclear reactor goes off and Then there are people are killed. So can we measure the pain of the people? I’m not saying that science causes the pain.
That’s not the point But accidents can happen everywhere. But my point is there is not everything is measurable So measurability there is there are for examples emotions that are not measurable So With all our scientific advancement in medical advancement, we don’t have anything precise like a pain-o-metre You know, if somebody has a fracture how much pain do you have? You know, we don’t have nowadays there is so much distrust about relationships when people form relationships That you know, does this person really care for me? Does this person is it going to be a good relationship? People have doubts. We don’t have anything like a love-o-metre Is it to measure love? So there are emotions that can’t be measured.
There are limitations Anything else? You got a very comprehensive list So we could say that there are practical benefits Benefits in terms of technology That right now we are using this mic. We are using the camera We are all using technology and we are all benefited by it So science has practical benefits. There are lots of features of science and we will zero in on some of them Now, let’s move forward and let’s look at spirituality So when you hear the word spirituality What comes to your mind? Belief, okay Belief in what? Spirituality involves some kind of belief We can say that is more associated with religion We will talk about what is the difference between religion and spirituality, but belief is associated more with religion.
It’s fair enough Anything else? Sorry connection with connection with God, okay So connection with we could put it more generically with some higher reality With with God or So some people may not necessarily always connect with God, but the spiritual They have some higher reality that they connect with and they call it as spiritual Okay Sorry Existing philosophy Philosophy so spirituality has a philosophical dimension to it without philosophy We would not have any There has to be some philosophy about the nature of reality and that there is a spiritual side to reality So philosophy is it’s about its propositions about what exists. So philosophy talks about existence so true Good point. There’s one more thing.
Somebody said when consciousness so is what about consciousness So what does spirituality do due to our consciousness or for our consciousness Yes, so you could say that’s a good point for a spirituality is about consciousness which we try to Exploring First for understanding it and then we want to you want to improve it. We want to elevate it You want to make it better, isn’t it? That’s one part of spirituality people want to have Happy thoughts we want to be more peaceful. We want to be more grateful We want to explore and enhance our consciousness.
Okay, that’s about spirituality anything else So, how is spirituality connected with energy or power that could be an aspect of science also So means by talking about a divine energy or power or what are you talking about here? Okay, so you could say So I’ll use a more specific word here something like supernatural realities So spirituality talks about That are there some things which are beyond the visible there could be supernatural energies so for example, somebody might talk about chakras and astrology and planets and gods Are you talking about something like that supernatural realities or what are you referring to? Anything beyond our normal experience not a normal explanation Yes, so this is a supernatural I mean the word used for this is paranormal phenomena So that is so supernatural aspect to it anything else So Spirituality talks about you could say purpose of existence or you could make it like we people want to live purposeful So when somebody becomes spiritual they want okay. I want a life of meaning and purpose So when people want that then that’s when they start exploring spirituality, so maybe somebody was in a In a car crash and they could have died in the survival Maybe after the thing maybe I should I should live for something higher in life now Maybe I should be less materialistic. I should speak one So we want something more valuable something more meaningful and purposeful in our life.
That is true Okay, any last points anyone Spirituality guides us towards dharma Okay, that is So we could say dharma in the sense of we could get guidance guidance for living How to it is somewhat related with? Meaning and purpose, but it could be more about specific choices also how to live in our life true excellent points So now We have got a very good starting point for Science and spirituality now the way I will discuss it is I will I will start from these points. We’ll talk about The same framework I was using for earlier class also I’ll use but here not concept here we’ll use concept So you look at concept then we look at the insight and then we look at fun final takeaways so the concept is that Broadly science works in a particular way Science tries to look at the natural world Now when we use the word natural in science, we could say in philosophical circumstances. It is context it is material so science looks for Natural phenomena and tries to look for natural explanations for those phenomena So for example If we consider an event the event that has said to have started the engine of modern science that is Newton Experiencing the Apple falling on his head So now when that Apple fell on his head Newton wanted to know what made the Apple fall Now he could have said Oh God made the Apple fall now he believed in God But what he was looking for this is a material event and he wants a material explanation for that event Okay.
So the technical thing is it is called Methodological naturalism. It’s a technical word Methodological methodology is how it works methodological naturalism So science in general works by looking for natural or material explanations for material phenomena So when that Apple fell, okay, why did the Apple fall? So maybe there is a force which causes it to fall Cause is it does it act only on apples? Does it act on other objects also? Does it operate only in in Great Britain? They still call it Great Britain now it has become very small Britain But Does it operate only in UK? Does it operate in other parts of the world also? Does it operate only at a particular time? Does it operate at all times? That’s where experiments were done and Then the law of gravity came up So basically what happens science looks for natural explanations for natural phenomena That is the defining characteristic of science now when a natural explanation is found That was the laws of gravity and then the laws of motion Now Newton inferred from that that there is a Supernatural explanation also That is the law of gravity and the laws of motion. They indicate a higher intelligence.
They indicate a divine creator So but that was an inference from him His observation and his focus was on trying to find natural explanations for natural phenomena So in that sense if we consider God to be spiritual God is by all traditions across all theistic traditions. God is understood to be a spiritual being then it is that Science will not be able to directly reach God science will not be able to find God through a Telescope or a microscope Because God is spiritual But the point over here is that science approaches the world in a particular way and This has turned out to be very powerful as science progressed. It didn’t just come out of observation There are and there’s a theory Especially when science got integrated with maths Where we could have measurable equation we could have equations and then they could be replicated So theories came up the technologies came up and by understanding how things function We could do a lot more than what we were able to do before So basically if we consider What happened through science is it take a particular approach to looking at reality whatever happens? I want to find a natural explanation for it natural means materialistic material explanation and science categorically turned away from non-natural supernatural or spiritual explanations and That was a strength.
So for example, there was a just like we had the pandemic a few years ago There’s a devastating black plague in the history of Europe Now when this black plague occurred Some people there were some people like shamans and spirit healers They said oh some ghost has possessed people and that ghost is causing people to vomit and fall sick and die The science said nothing to do it. There’s no such ghost. What is causing it? Let’s find it out They look for a natural explanation and they came up with germs So there is a strength in not looking for Supernatural explanations in by looking for natural explanations, we can get better understanding we can get a better Clarity and more we can get control So if there is a ghost that has come, what can you do? You know, you can’t do much but if the germ is there we find out how does the germ grow? How can we stop the germ from growing? How can we kill the germ? So what happens is by looking at this level of natural explanations? science gets Understanding and Then it gets control Hmm and we can control then we can make things better in some ways So this was the methodology of science and to what extent it has worked it has worked spectacularly and now with science advancing further with AI is going Rapid bounds are happening in science So that is one aspect Now Interestingly what people thought or what sociologists and Thinkers felt was that as science grows Hmm Spirituality will decrease Hmm They felt that Oh as science grows people will stop believing in ideas like the soul ideas like God and That way they will become more and more materialistic and atheistic This was the expectation In fact there are many Scientists especially or many thinkers Frederick Nietzsche among them who said that God is dead So that idea was in fact I had gone to Australia a few years ago and as a panel discussion interface panel discussion The topic of the panel discussion there they had given was why has God not died till now? Now what does that mean their idea is that of course God if he’s existing is eternal He will never die, but their idea is that the concept of God.
Why do people still keep believing in it? When we have advanced in science a thought was as people become more rational as technology provides more and more benefits Then more less and less people will start believing in God But it has not happened actually all over the world there has been a Persistence of religion and there’s a you know resurgence of religion I’ll come to spirituality later, but basically if you consider faith in God The Middle East it’s you may we may have concerns about the fanatical expressions of religion But the point is that people believe in some supernatural reality in India also we are experiencing a resurgence of religion Now we in India think of America as a materialistic country America as Hollywood But you know that Hollywood is just a Los Angeles in the Western world America is the most religious country among all countries so as compared to Australia Canada and New Zealand UK France America is the most religious in southern and middle part of America. They call the Bible Belt, but aggressive evangelical Christians are there So all over the world there is religion not in persist the belief in God. Let’s keep that word over here belief in some divinity It’s not only persisting.
It’s increasing That’s happening even in Russia so Soviet Russia was Communist and communist means they were aggressively against any idea of God They persecuted anybody who believed in God and yet after Soviet Russia fell there’s a tremendous resurgence in China Any anything connected with God is very rigidly controlled and yet people are taking it up So why are people taking it up? Why has science not led to a decline in spirituality or certainly not an eradication of spirituality That is because as society has evolved it’s and we are learning that there are that we human beings We need something more than just natural explanations and the facilities that come thereby So There are two different things over here so science what it provides So science gives rise to technology and technology can provide us means means means Tools so if I want to talk with somebody I can talk with America somebody in America just by clicking a phone So phenomenal means are provided But we humans don’t just need means we also need meaning in life What is life all about What am I meant to do in life? Science can provide us many options about what to do But what will be meaningful for me? What will bring value to my life? That is something which science does not answer that question So we could put it this way science is the study of matter And in the study of matter it has become quite sophisticated but spirituality is the study of what matters Study of what matters What is important in life? What should I pursue so that my life will be meaningful and this Distinct Compartmentalisation is visible even in the ancient texts of India See when Arjuna turned to Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra Arjuna did not want to study matter at that time. He already was expert in archery So and he had a guru who had taught him that So we could say that archery it was not just a simple physical skill There was also some kind of technology by which he had some sophisticated powers So there are many kinds of astras that are described Now we may or may not believe in the existence of such astras. That’s a different question.
But the point is that Within the story of the Mahabharata is described that he had access to those and they are a kind of technology Basically, what does technology do? Technology enables us to gain access to powers that we humans normally don’t have Isn’t it? Even these glasses are a technology What do they do? If my my eyes are not able to see clearly the glasses enable me to see So now when he’s shooting arrows an arrow can cause some amount of damage But that arrow is infused with some higher power. It can do something more So that is technology so he had technology What was required for his needs but when he turned to Krishna it was not to okay. What weapons do I use to fight? It was is fighting really important What should I do that will be meaningful for my life? What will bring meaning into my life? So he turned to Krishna because he wanted to Understand what matters so is fighting and gaining a kingdom important or is preventing bloodshed important And Krishna told him that both are important, but what is most important is understanding my plan and Harmonising with the divine plan your life has a higher purpose and aligned with that higher purpose That was the bigger vision that Krishna gave So this idea of science and spirituality both going together science provides the means Science provides the means for us to do things Spirituality tells us what are the things that are worth doing? What is it that we should do that will make our life meaningful and joyful? That this is how both can go together Hmm and Now somebody say why does meaning matter You know we have means anybody can find their own meaning in life, and that’s fair enough No, Krishna as the the world has been arranged in such a way that everybody has free will Everybody can decide what they want to do But the question is that What somebody wants to do does that actually make their life meaningful? That’s the question Hmm so for example now if somebody wants to gain knowledge If you want to learn psychology you want to learn You want to learn physics you want to learn maths Now AI can make it so much easier You can ask questions get quick answers.
You can get summaries you hear a class There are so many apps so if we want to learn some subject the means that are provided are so much easier easily available But the question is that how many people want to learn Can AI tell you what to learn? Can AI tell what will be meaningful for you? So many people now use AI to have virtual girlfriends or virtual boyfriends And there is some people who say okay. I’m lonely. I don’t have social skills.
Let me just have somebody But you know this can be damaging There’s a court case going on in Florida right now There are some AI apps which can create characters as what you want. So there was one young man in America in Florida Basically, he was a big fan of this TV series called Game of Thrones So there is a female character over there so he used AI to create a character who exactly spoke like that female character and Then he would spend hours and hours chatting with her and basically he fell in love with that character And he said I want to be with you And she said, you know, I’m not a physical being so So then, you know, he was so caught in that alternate reality that he said so if I give up my physical body and Then can I be with you? And you know AI sometimes hallucinates and Here that particular character said yes Yes, I long to be united with you and this boy killed himself This is the New York Times gave a big article about many cases like this now, these are exceptional There are millions of people are using AI constructively There are many more using it destructively and this was vividly destructive, but my point is that now His mother is actually suing the the that particular AI that they should have some safeguards over there Now that is important You are ending your life for what? I’ve got an imagination that you will get that it’s so tragic You know it is It’s you know, it’s It’s so ridiculous that you can’t believe it, but it actually happened. It’s comic It would have been comic if it had not been so tragic you could say So the point I’m making is this extreme example, and I’m not stigmatising the use of AI over here Not I must know am I devaluing the the research and the effort that people are making to develop AI What I’m saying is that technology or Science cannot tell us what is meaningful in life What will bring meaning to our life if we outsource the search for meaning to technology? It will make our life meaningless It can make our life meaningless And so many people nowadays are lost in playing video games and social media chats And you know, what are they actually doing with their life? I saw one cartoon One man is telling his friend since yesterday my broadband Wi-Fi went down So I spent some time with my family They seem like nice people So it seemed like nice people means what you don’t even know they’re practically So the idea is that Technology or science for that matter Neither of them can tell us what will bring meaning to our life hmm, so You forget everything from this class just remember this one one Point, you know, there is Artha Artha is something of value something which is meaningful or valuable and There is paramartha Paramartha is we make it up.
There is something supremely valuable so traditionally It is understood across the world’s traditions That there is there is some kind of divinity and the divinity is paramartha So in Sanskrit that is the word supreme value. So what is supreme value? That is God, spirituality, divinity So there is the understanding is there is a hierarchy of Arthas And then it culminates in paramartha So for example at a basic level we have We need air to breathe we need water to drink we need food to eat so air water food This is Artha now to get all of these we need money Money is also Artha Now can money bring meaning to someone’s life? Well Yes If they don’t even have food Then all that they are working for is to get some money. So let us survive that is one level of meaning Hmm can money bring happiness Well, yes, if somebody is in pain and they don’t have the money to get medicine If they get money, it will give some relief and that is happiness If somebody is dying and they are saved by medicine it can Since money can bring happiness up to a particular level money can bring value up to a particular level But okay, you have avoided that you have got food so if if say Money provides food and food provides happiness or food enables us to live That is true.
And if that were the meaning of life that brings some level of meaning in life But if that were the meaning of life Then all the well-fed people in the world should be happy Then you’re living very meaningfully. Does it work like that? No, it does not. So there is there are hierarchies of meaning So at a basic level We can say we need air water We need food We need money Now after we are able to survive then we need we want acceptance At an emotional level we want to belong to a family.
We want some relationships. We want people to accept us Beyond that we want some respect in life. I don’t want us to be accepted and tolerated.
I want to be respected No So the idea is that there are hierarchies So there are hierarchies of needs that we have so there is Artha and there is Parmartha But what happens so we could say one Artha here somewhere in between Could also be entertainment Life can be boring Now life can be boring and so people turn towards entertainment, but sometimes entertainment can also be boring And then it becomes very frustrating So sometimes you have somebody on Netflix access there are 500 shows to watch and not one show is worth watching Then you can get frustrated, but entertainment is also a need. We could say Yukta Aahar Vyaar Hrishikrishna says. We need entertainment, but the problem is that there is Artha and there is Parmartha But then sometimes what happens is what is an Artha itself becomes the Parmartha that means Something of value is made supremely valuable and when an Artha becomes a Parmartha that leads to Anartha When Artha becomes a Parmartha it leads to Anartha so for example money Everybody needs money for living But when money becomes the supreme purpose the supreme value of life that leads to loba that leads to greed We all need money no doubt, but somebody for the pursuit of money what happens they start lying They start cheating and not just with other people they start cheating and lying with their own family members also Then what will happen is they may become very wealthy But they will be very wealthily lonely Isn’t it so that’s not very helpful Similarly now we all need a certain level of control in our life Say right now.
I am giving this class now all of you are at least sitting silently and hearing Now if somebody’s phone starts ringing. That’s a distraction Now if someone is ringing repeatedly I may say that can you please Put your phone in silent or if there is a congregation over there there are Mataji and their small baby the baby starts crying It is a problem, but then control is important And if the baby is crying I can tell I can ask the mother to pacify the baby or I can ask them to can You go to some other room, but if the need for control becomes so much. I start screaming at that mother Can’t you control your baby? What kind of mother are you? Why did you even become a mother if you can’t control your baby? Now if I start speaking like that no matter how good my class is at the end of the class People will only remember how I yelled at that mother Isn’t it so if control becomes the supreme need that leads to anger That leads to crowd So control is important everybody needs control, but for the sake of control if I forget everything else it becomes a paramartha That leads to anger now we all need some amount of respect in life Nobody likes to be disrespected, but when the respect becomes the supreme Paramartha that leads to ego it leads to ahankar it leads to pride So the idea is that every anartha comes from an artha taken very far So what has happened is that That technology science through technology has provided us a lot of arthas and Then people take the artha too far It’s like say entertainment is necessary, but entertainment should be a break from life For many people life has become a break from entertainment It’s like the most important thing is what I post on my social media.
What is happening in this new TV series? What is the new when is the new episode coming? When is the sports match happening? And All their life. I have to do this job. I have to do this.
I will do that errand all that is like an interruption So then that is not a very healthy or a meaningful way to live So it’s a the technology provides us artha in the sense that it provides us things of value but unfortunately When the things of value are provided very easily Hmm and we are not given a world view which tells us what is paramartha then what happens we make those things of value as supremely valuable and That’s how it leads to an artha So there are two things happening over here. There is science and technology So what happens is science gives us lots of artha Hmm Artha means things of value So we can have a we can have a phone. We can have a computer.
We can have AI In America, you can have guns And now now There are weapons basically so lots of artha are there Now on the one side technology provides us lots of artha now science it Gives us no paramartha What it means in the science as I said it is not explicitly atheistic There is no scientific experiment, which can disprove the existence of a higher ultimate reality But science is Functionally non-theistic It says we don’t bring God into the picture. There’s a famous scientist Laplace He presented or he wrote a book on science and he presented to the king of France And the king asked him at that time at least the the heads of countries who are connected with the churches That the the Pope was like a super super king without him. The Kings could not be appointed So this king asked so where is God in your book? So Laplace said I have no need for that hypothesis He said I can explain the world without God Now whether you can explain or not.
The point I’m making is science is non-theistic It may not be atheistic, but science does not bring God into the picture and science says we will explain the world without God but basically what happens because of this is God goes further and further away from people’s minds and Then is there any ultimate meaning most people think if I am if I am to be scientific I have I cannot be religious. I cannot be spiritual. I cannot believe in God.
That’s not true But that’s the broad idea that So fundamentally science removes the idea of any paramartha that there any supreme supremely valuable thing in life So then if there is no paramartha if there is no supremely important thing in life then everybody is up to them to decide whatever is important and Then we take any artha and we can make it into a paramartha Now sometimes this can this can lead to disastrous things not all the time many times it leads to distraction But sometimes it can lead to destruction also So this double combination that lot of artha is The provision of a lot of artha and there is a removal of paramartha That is a deadly combination So there is now and Okay, if there is something which is ultimately meaningful in life Then that is what I should be doing or at least I should be aligning my life around that But if that is not there, then what am I meant to do with my life? and If if there is if there is no God if there is no ultimate reality, there is no ultimate guide for living on What basis do you say that? Somebody who is a mother somebody like mother Teresa are doing a lot of humanitarian work and somebody who is Just spending 24 hours gaming On what basis do you say that one person is better another person is not so good? You can say I find this meaningful you find that meaningful Now somebody may say, you know, I find it meaningful to spread gossip about others. I get great joy in how far my rumours spread Now there are people like that, you know, there are people who do that unfortunately So now any artha can be made into a paramartha, but that can lead to anartha So the problem of science is twofold It does not tell us what will truly bring meaning in our life and it increases the means at our access So now here again with both of these and not in any way blaming science or blaming technology What I am talking about is that if science and technology become the whole and soul of our life and That leads us to having no room for spirituality Then these problems start coming That’s why science if it takes people away from spirituality it can be disastrous Now does it have to take it away? Not necessarily Science is the study of matter Spirituality is the study of what matters. Both of them have their scope Both of them have their place So Actually, I was talking about the concept.
I went a lot into the concept now. I’ll start talking about the inside So in this I talk about chittakaranam So now let’s so I till now I talked about what science cannot provide And how that can be a problem So this is again I’m making this point, this is not a criticism of science per se Like if I say the president of America is not the emperor of the world That is not a criticism of the president of America. Now the current president of America may take it as a criticism But that’s not a criticism.
That’s objective reality, isn’t it? So to say that science Does not provide us answers to all questions Science does not tell us what will bring meaning to our life This is not a criticism. This is not condemning science. It is Contextualising science what science can do So some people may take it as criticism, but it’s not criticism Now, what does spirituality do? So this is where I’ll talk about Two main things in spirituality There’s a lot that can go on under the term spirituality But I will put two main characters of this Spirituality has philosophy in it and there is practise Now philosophy gives us Propositions about the nature of reality.
So in this sense Spirituality and science are similar Science also has two aspects to it. There is theory and there is experiment So for example philosophy proposes that there is ultimate reality And that if we link with that ultimate reality, we will find greater peace and joy in our life We’ll find a deeper love in our life deeper fulfilment So now the practise is okay, how do I link? So the practise could be you do some mantra chanting, you do some meditation You come to a temple you go to a holy place. There are many things which are involved in practise now If you consider in science, there are relatively few people who know the theory Hmm like right now how AI works How many people know the theory behind it? Not many But many people use AI So now when the experiments are done systematically Hmm and the results come in systematic and predictable predictable ways then from that experiment What happens is technology is developed hmm So experiments are done.
So for example AI researchers, they may put some prompts in AI and they’ll see the results They’re doing experiments and then the results come with the consistent level of accuracy Then that is made in technologies available for everyone. So like that when the practise is systematised That leads to culture Now culture can involve religion Generally people talk about religion as okay, you go to a temple and do some worship something like that, but Spirituality is involving a culture. It is not just what you do when you go to a temple It is what you do at home.
It is also how you work how you are at your work So now so in that sense philosophy and culture practise and culture are related the same way as experiment and technology So we could say that Among these two wings so Number of people who know science is very little number of people who use technology is a lot more Isn’t it So similarly the number of people who know the philosophy by science, I mean the science theory of the science hmm People who know the theories of science are very few Similarly people who know the philosophy are very few but the people who practise the culture are many So many people may come to a temple and feel good many people may do meditation and they feel good Among the world’s continents at present Europe is the most atheistic continent Africa is highly polarised. There is Islam and Christianity and there are fights going on over there. Some countries are polarised over there but Europe is quite atheistic and There were a wave of books which came after 9-11 That which says, you know, we should eradicate God and religion from society For about 10 years lots of authors were writing books, but it just didn’t work So now there’s a different kinds of books coming There are books like religion for atheists There’s meditation for atheists yoga for atheists prayers for atheists Now people say, who are you praying for if you are an atheist, praying to if you are an atheist, isn’t it? But what they found is that they are simply analysing at a psychological and sociological level They feel the idea of meditating, the idea of praying, it seems to provide some benefits So the idea is even if there is no God, these activities provide benefit.
So even atheists should do this and That way what they’re trying to do is they remove the soul of spirituality and try to keep the structure of spirituality And they try to replicate it So the culture can spread very widely you know, I was in Los Angeles and There was a there was a studio called yoga studio called OM studio and There right next to that studio One of our devotees was running that studio, yoga studio where they teach, where he also gives us spirituality And there was right opposite to that there’s another studio. The name of the studio is no OM studio So they said that this is, I asked the devotee said that this is there’s no OMing and no humming over here This is simply physical exercise. You don’t have to believe anything at all So what is happening is okay, can just doing some physical postures benefit people? Yeah, it can but yoga is not just about physical postures So but they find that okay sitting in this asanas benefits.
So let’s do the asanas So the point I’m making is that even atheistic people are acknowledging that spiritual practises Have some benefits Just like somebody may say I’m a believer in God. Can we say technology has its use? Of course, we can say that there’s nothing wrong in that so There is something that spirituality provides What is it? so Spirituality there is philosophy and there is practise When both come together They provide us a deep sense of meaning purpose and fulfilment in our life So when we understand the philosophy and we do the practise together Each one of us can make our life more meaningful For example in the Gita’s context what Krishna tells us is that we are not alone in this world We are not struggling against this big bad world all alone. We are all parts of God Krishna is with us and Krishna is within us and Krishna is for us God has a plan for the lives of each one of us and we are all a part of a bigger plan So by using our talents in a mood of service in a mood of contribution, we all can do valuable things We may even do wonderful things But if each one of us that it gives a world view By which we can understand and find a deeper meaning in life So people who are seeking that experience seeking that meaning they do many things And even atheists are trying that right now So So this is the relationship with spirituality and Spirituality is like science in the sense that it also has these two limbs now Let’s consider two things over here Spirituality can go wrong in two ways.
One is if there is only philosophy and there is no practise And the only practise and no philosophy Hmm if there is only philosophy and no practise Then what happens is it just leads to endless speculation Because anybody can come up with any philosophy But things are like this where things are like that things are like that So if you’re not practising you’re not experiencing anything. You’re not realising anything so philosophy without practise just leads to endless speculating And This was happened to a large extent in European philosophy See in Europe Christianity became to a large extent divorced from science and Then philosophy was more rational intellectual. So there are many many deep thinkers in who came in the West But because Christianity had not given a clear sadhana a clear set of practises their idea is okay Believe that Jesus will save you the saving the act of being saved that became very important So even now in Christianity if you go many people are getting converted here they don’t really have any sadhana and say you pray to Jesus go to the church once a week and Do some give some donation do some Thai thing.
There’s no systematic practise So when that happened the philosophy that emerged in the West especially in the continent philosophy They call it in America that became divorced from any practise just started people started speculating Maybe life is like this. Maybe life is like that. Maybe life is like that and people came up with the idea Maybe life has no meaning only so there was there’s a There’s a philosophy called absurdism Absurdism is what? Life is absurd.
So there’s a Alberto Camo was a philosopher. You can call him a philosopher. You can call him a fool-o-saufer The sophistry of fools, so he said life is meaningless The more you try to find some meaning in life the more you get frustrated Life is misery the more you try to find some pleasure in life the more you become more miserable Therefore what happens we said the only philosophical question worth asking is Whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow It’s a very dark way of living So see what happens if there is no parmartha if there is no higher purpose Then we all can find some purpose.
But what is the value of that purpose? So for example among students if we consider now if there’s a lot of peer pressure a lot of parental pressure getting marks becomes the parmartha And what happens is if some students don’t get good marks they may end their life Because if something becomes the parmartha and if that is not coming then what is the point of living So generally among Indian and to some extent among Chinese students If the students don’t do well, they end their lives Though in America also students end their lives, but Americans in the sense of white people Caucasians They call it they very rarely commit suicide because of getting poor marks Now Americans have lived in relatively comfort and luxury. I have not yet met an American who says I am jobless Yes, we say it very casually. I am between jobs I am between jobs It’s like you know, I am between cities.
They take often studies and career and this not so seriously But American kids they commit suicide because of heartbreak For them what happens there their artha which they made into parmartha is I should have a relationship You know if nobody wants to have me as a boyfriend or a girlfriend Then that means I am unloved that means I will maybe I am unloveable And if nobody will ever love me, what is the point of living? So any artha can become a parmartha And when that happens the parmartha is lost Okay, not getting good marks in exam is not good But nobody has to end their life for that Why would somebody end their life because that becomes the meaning of life for them. I was in Canada. I met one young man from Sri Lanka He looked like an Indian, but he was Sri Lankan and he told me that he was a big cricket fan And around 2000 between 2008-9 till 2014-15 Sri Lanka got in multiple World Cup finals T20 and other World Cup finals and they lost So the third time or fourth time it happened.
He said he had his two friends were there and They all three of them were big cricket fans So one of them He just committed suicide Because Sri Lanka lost the cricket match, the cricket World Cup final None of the Sri Lankan cricketers committed suicide So what happened is for them, yeah, they are fully into it, but it’s a job It’s another match you want to win it, but if you lose it, it’s not worth ending your life The point I’m making is if you make any artha into parmartha Then that can lead to disaster So the biggest problem with science is not the technology can be misused that’s possible But the problem is that science itself does not give us any parmartha and Then anybody can make anything as parmartha and then that leads to problems So Radical Islam for example. Now what is happening is within that there is the religious indoctrination So there is, I’m going to the other practise part now here, consider if there’s only philosophy, but no practise So science also has a lot of theory But no practise, it’s just an endless speculation and the speculation if it leads you to meaninglessness Or what you think is meaningful it goes away from you, then you end your life Now on the other hand, if there’s only practise without any philosophy Now in general what happens is this will at best You put it, this can lead to sentimentalism Sentimentalism means people believe certain things, there are blind rituals, there are superstitions People believe so many things And you know anybody falls a little sick You know, maybe some ghost has possessed them You know, you hear a door creaking at night. Why has a ghost entered into my house? So people become very sentimental and this kind of sentimentalism What it gives a bad name to religion Because for example, now this is possible in every religion, Christianity has faith healing That you go into church and you say I say that I’m saved by God and you are a cripple and you become normal And you become normal for five minutes and after that you again become a cripple So it’s all a hoax, but people believe those things So sentimentalism is this practise without philosophy just do this and these things will happen But then at first it can become fanaticism It can become extremism That means I am practising this and this is the right thing to do and if you are not practising this Then you are not only wrong You are a bad person.
You are an evil person So when the practise gets absolutised What is the purpose of the practise that gets lost? And that can lead to disaster So if the philosophy is not there, then what happens the practise becomes Practise becomes Absolutised So when there is a radicalisation of religion, it’s not just in Islam. In Christianity also There are Catholics and Protestants and for a hundred years they are fighting against each other And they are fighting over some little small things. Fighting means Actually wars happened and people are killing each other So Okay, some people say that okay when you get baptised you have to sprinkle some water on your head Some people say no you have to duck your body in your head, tuck your head in the water Some people say not your head, your whole body has to go in the water.
If only your head has gone in the water, you are not baptised As a people can take certain practises and Absolutise them and anybody who doesn’t do those practises that person is considered a terrible person Wrong person, bad person, terrible person So within fanatics, there are two kinds of fanatics Now there are exclusivists Exclusivists are people who say that I have exclusive right to God. My path is the only way to God You are not following this, you are not going to God There is a, if you are not following this path, you are going to go to hell They are exclusivists. So exclusivists are in thought And then there are extremists Extremists are actually kinder, more compassionate than exclusivists So extremists say, exclusivists say if you don’t follow our path, you are going to go to hell Extremists say anyway, you are going to go to hell.
Why delay it? We will send you there faster They’ll go about killing people Now practise without philosophy Has led to religion getting a very bad name so superstition and Sentimentalism is one problem, which is widespread And fanaticism is also a problem which can become widespread So what happens, any religion can take one Artha and make it into Paramartha. What is Artha? You have to do this ritual in this particular way. If you don’t do this ritual in this way, then you are wrong You are a bad person In South India in one temple it happened that there are two groups of people and They used to wear tilak in different ways and there was one royal elephant Which used to carry the deity across on a procession and these two groups had quarrelling which tilak should be put on the elephant And they couldn’t decide they went to the local court from there it went to high court, it went to Supreme Court And the day before the Supreme Court gave the decision that elephant died So my point is I am not making fun of any particular religion.
These are universal features and there are universal dangers That what we need is both philosophy and practise So philosophy This is I will lead to my conclusion point now. Philosophy makes whatever we are doing It makes it sensible What am I doing, what is the sense behind it and practise makes it verifiable That verifiable means not necessarily that I will see God But I will I will see a transformation in my life where I will become godly Where I will start becoming less selfish, less controlled by my anarthas. I will become purer So when both of these is there Spirituality becomes a very powerful tool When there is philosophy and practise it becomes a very powerful tool for inner transformation So what is this inner transformation that’s what I will conclude now with the takeaway The last part is the takeaway.
CIT we are discussing The takeaway is that spirituality brings about inner transformation Just as science and technology bring about outer transformation So we can have huge buildings, we can have gadgets, we can have cars, we can have planes That’s outer transformation. Spirituality brings about inner transformation Now what is this inner transformation? Let’s see all of us I talked about There is this hierarchy of arthas There are many arthas but there is one parmartha So what spirituality does is that what is the actual parmartha That becomes our parmartha So how are anarthas removed? By giving us something more meaningful in life Whatever we have made excessively important that gets decreased This might seem a little abstract but suppose somebody has anger issues Because they have an over controlling nature Now when you become spiritual, when you chant the holy names, when you practise bhakti Through the philosophy we understand that I am not the supreme controller I don’t need to be a supreme controller There is a supreme controller who is far better than me, who is far wiser than me And I need to align with that So at a philosophical level it becomes easier for us to let go of our need for excessive control And at a practical level we may find that just by chanting also Our anger will decrease Our ego will decrease Why? Because we may seek respect from the world too much And some people may never respect us Some people may never value us But spirituality tells us that we are always valued by God God will always value us Each one of us is so special to Krishna that Krishna is present in our hearts As an individual avatar for each one of us, as the parmatma So each one of us is not only valued, it is treasured and cherished by God So whatever is the anartha, that anartha gets removed Because we align ourselves with parmartha Somebody has a particular talent Say somebody is very good at computers Somebody is very good at say medical school and they are good at surgery Those are valuable But what do I do with that valuable thing? How can I use it properly? One of my friends has done his PhD In the post celebrity lives, psychology PhD isn’t it? Post celebrity lives of American basketball players In America basketball is very big It’s like IPL in India, they have the NBA National Basketball Association So what happens? These NBA players, they make millions and millions of dollars But then if basketball has become their parmartha And then they become old They can’t play basketball See in most other careers You start coming to your peak by 45, 50, 55 Between 40 to 60 you got experience, you got wisdom There is a peak But in sports by the time you are 40 You have become like a fossil Isn’t it? So sports career they may be very glamorous Even when they are successful But after that many of these people what happens? What am I to do with my life? I cannot play basketball anymore Then they have lot of money And they start drinking They start engaging in sexuality Indiscriminately And then they take drugs And they sink into depression So when they may be extremely talented But when the talent which is artha Becomes the parmartha Then that can lead to disaster Somebody is a surgeon And they are doing lot of good for surgery But they get caught in a car accident And they lose their hand Artha is gone But if the artha is gone Parmartha still remains If the artha is the parmartha Then even if somebody is doing good It will lead to problems afterwards In the last century there are 10 top authors Who won Nobel laureates Out of the top 10 7 of them committed suicide Now you know I am one of my main services is writing So I was very concerned Why these authors commit suicide So when I read some of their biographies And read something about them So what happened is That they loved writing And you know Especially when you do creative work It is dependent on inspiration You get some ideas It is almost like you get You don’t create the ideas You get the ideas And so they wrote a book Which became an international classic And after that When they tried to write other books They would just not get that inspiration And then It is a very dark feeling For a talented and successful person To think that My best is behind me And whatever is in the future Is always going to be lesser than my best And they just couldn’t come to terms With the fact that What I am writing now I build a reputation of writing like this But all that I am writing now Is poorer than what I have written in the past And so when writing itself Writing and the quality of the writing And the popularity of the writing That became their parmartha Then when they couldn’t do that They just ended their life So this is a universal principle that If we do not have spirituality in our life We will make something else our parmartha And that can lead to a lot of problems So our spiritual practises will correct that We will make sure that Our health is important Our talents are important Our wealth is important But ultimately It is Krishna who is important It is God who is important Tvameva mata cha pita tvameva Tvameva bandhus cha sakha tvameva Tvameva vidya dravinam tvameva Tvameva sarvam mama deva deva Tvameva sarvam That you are everything So our mother is important Our father is important Our siblings are important Our friends are important Our wealth is important Our knowledge is important But none of them are the parmartha All of them get artha Because of parmartha Our mother’s love is our mother’s love for us But it is also Krishna’s love Expressed through the mother Our ability is our ability But our ability is also Krishna’s gift to us So when we understand this Then we won’t let any artha Become the parmartha for us That way we will be able to find that balance Between science and technology Science is artha Science can give us means So the synergy is Science can make things better Things better means in the outer world Science can make things better Spirituality can make thoughts better Spirituality can make our inner world better Thoughts better means What should I value in life What is important Unfortunately in today’s world what has happened is That things have become better But thoughts have become worse So many people suffer from mental health problems And yes there are psychiatrists And many of them help But people take antidepressant And then that becomes their parmartha That means I cannot live without antidepressant And then they become addicted to that antidepressant So yes If somebody has depression They can take antidepressant But that is not the solution to depression We have to find some source of meaning in life So we need artha and parmartha both Science can never provide us parmartha So when we understand that both these go together Then each one of us can create Using science we can improve the things Using spirituality we can improve our thoughts And if both are together Then we can actually create a better world Such as its science and spirituality So if you have science Yes or no And we have spirituality Yes or no So as I said science will improve things Spirituality will improve thoughts Now if we have science but no spirituality We are improving things But we are not improving our thoughts Then what will become? Actually we will become destructive We can destroy ourselves We can destroy others If we have neither science nor spirituality That means our thoughts may be bad But somebody doesn’t have any access to technology You know they get angry They try to beat somebody with their punches They can’t really hurt anyone Somebody takes a machine gun They are angry They can kill a hundred people in a few minutes So if there is neither science nor technology We will be ineffective We may be destructive But we can’t really do harm too much Now if we have only spirituality but no science What will happen is Science is the means So right now if you are not using the sound system If you are not having Zoom If say you are not on social media Many of you may not even come to know about this So we will be under effective So if we have both science and spirituality We can be super effective So science can give us the means Spirituality can give us the meaning And both of these together Can help us to create a better me And through a better me a better world So I will summarise quickly what I discussed today Our topic was science and spirituality So all of you gave some explanations of what science is And what spirituality is So I talked about CIT C was what? Concept So the concept was That science looks for material explanations For material phenomena That is the methodology of science Now with this methodology Science looks for natural explanations Or material explanations And this is a very powerful methodology By this what happens? We get understanding of the world around us And we also get control So that we can get So through science what happens is Eventually we get better means Especially science through technology Gives us better means And that is very valuable But the problem is That science it gives us no meaning to life There is no God, there is no ultimate reality There are just particles of matter moving around See science is functionally non-theistic But from non-theistic Somebody can very easily become atheistic And then life Science does not tell us anything about The ultimate meaning of life And then the result of that is The means are Artha And meaning is actually ultimately It is a search for Parmartha What will give actually Ultimate meaning to me in my life So that is insight we discussed is That if any Artha It becomes a Parmartha Then that will lead to Anartha So we discussed how This can happen to wealth This can happen to respect This can happen to control But this can also happen to entertainment This can happen to gadgets You can get addicted to devices So any Artha can become a Parmartha So now what is happening is Science what it is doing is Science removes the idea of Parmartha And technology gives us a lot of Artha That’s how Artha can very easily become Anartha So this is a deadly combination that is there So now what does spirituality do Talk about spirituality is like science In the sense that there is philosophy And there is practise Now the practise is meant to give us experience In that sense just like in science What do we have? We have theory and we have experiment So now the theory and experiment What happens? Through the practise eventually culture comes up Through experiment technology comes up Number of people who know that philosophy may be very less People who practise culture is a lot But when both are there that is the best We discussed about how spirituality can go wrong Is that if there is only philosophy It can lead to just speculation And the speculation can become pointless There is only practise Then it can become either sentimental People just follow blindly and they just said superstitious Or it can even become fanatical My practise is only right practise This is a Parmartha for me But if both are together Then spirituality becomes sensible and verifiable Through philosophy make sense of what we are doing Through practise we can verify what we are doing We get higher experience And thus it can lead to inner transformation So what are the takeaways for us? Two main things The first takeaway is that for us we very much need Through science we can improve things And through spirituality we can improve thoughts So ideally speaking what we want is Both science and spirituality We want better thoughts and we want better things So we discussed this four quadrants That we have science and we have spirituality So it is best that we situate ourselves in quadrant four Where both are there That’s where we will be super effective Otherwise we may be under effective If we have only spirituality but no science If we have only science but no spirituality We will be destructive Because what will happen is Some Artha we will make into Parmartha If we have neither we will be ineffective So we discussed our science It tells us it is the study of matter It is the study of matter And spirituality is the study of what matters So when we have both of them together By studying matter we can improve things By studying what matters we can improve our thoughts And that way each one of us Can make our life better And we can help make the world better Thank you very much Hare Krishna Any more questions? Anyone have any questions? Yes Prabhu, that science and spirituality Is the best thing like they do in the world Correct So here many times like that The scientific things What I am finding What I am doing But it improves something else So those are called as Maya So how can we So can you be specific What is called as Maya Like phone or gadgets Or what are you talking about exactly? Prabhu, suppose I am working in Atmospheric Atmospheric laboratory We are conducting some science experiments Based on user requirements Like that I know sphere and Different things in atmosphere This is our duty to have To conduct experiments Sometimes you can think that These are Maya So how we are Too much Doing these things So how can we Well what is Maya in that See ultimately Maya is also Krishna’s energy So Krishna has made this world To function in a particular way And learning about how the world functions That itself is not Maya If you consider Ayurveda Ayurveda has a huge history of research In Ayurveda there are some books like Charaka Samhita, Ashutosh Samhita and all those But beyond that people do research So research itself is not a bad thing at all If we understand that I am studying the nature which is created by God So then studying nature Can also make you more God conscious Now again we don’t want to make Nature as Artha, we don’t want to make it Parmartha I will study nature and I will forget God Not like that But what the understanding is In our tradition or broadly in spiritual traditions That God speaks through nature And God speaks through scripture So what God speaks through nature We study through science What God speaks through scripture We study through spirituality So nature is also one way of God speaking to us So you can do it in a God consciousness way Now of course where it could become Maya is We get so caught in these things That we forget Krishna Or while we are doing these things We get so caught in the atmosphere around it So that atmosphere affects us And takes us away from Krishna But otherwise it’s not Maya The activity itself is not Maya Prabhupada says that we are not against The knowing spirit of science We are against their atheism So as long as we don’t make it into the Parmartha It’s not Maya So Maya basically means what When we take something as meaningful Without any connection with God Then that meaningful thing becomes The supremely meaningful thing for us That’s when it becomes a problem There is a question there Our cognitive facilities like thinking And our rational So like how can We can use it minimising In a productive way Not to get affected adversely But facilities of thinking Under things doesn’t go down Like how to balance it So can our dependence on say technology Like AI lead to problems? Yes See the nature of the material world is That every problem has a solution And every solution creates a problem That is the nature of the world There are no problems that seem unsolvable But there are no solutions that are perfect That is the nature of the world So with every problem Every solution will come a problem And we have to learn resources to deal with that problem So can any technology lead to problems? Of course yes So using phones It can make us more distracted Social media can make us more distracted It can also make us more connected Now it depends on how we use it So now for Similarly with respect to AI Should we regulate using it? There are two different things That we use technology As a resource for our intelligence Artificial intelligence If it becomes a resource for our intelligence Then it is valuable If I am doing the thinking I use it for information For guiding my analysis For editing or whatever But the problem is Instead of it being a resource for our intelligence We outsource our intelligence there That can become deadly So the problem is Artificial intelligence is a bit of a problem But the big problem is Artificial intelligence and natural stupidity That’s a deadly combination So this boy who committed suicide What happened was He outsourced his own life to AI So now that means Is AI enhancing my ability Or reducing my ability? So can I do certain things without technology also? And do I do them? So if I have to do some simple writing Do I proofread it myself? Or do I visually give it to AI? Do some simple calculation Do I need AI for doing it? Can I do it myself? So we should also be able to Be evaluating whether this is increasing my ability Or decreasing my ability So it should be an extension It should not be a replacement And that caution we have to take Each thing will bring challenges So for example now Each passing generation The attention span of kids has decreased But paradoxically The IQ of kids seems to be increasing You know the kind of games that kids 5 year old, 6 year old, 8 year old, 10 year old Gets playing They are very complicated games So many moving pieces It’s a I am 50 round about almost I have a nephew who is settled My brother’s son is settled in America He was playing some game And he wanted me to play with him You know I had to spend some good amount At least 5-10 minutes to understand what the game is I didn’t have time to play But I was still observing The thing is that As far as IQ level is concerned With each generation The IQ level seems to be increasing Nowadays if you see Most movies You know many of the movies Have much more complicated plot lines And this character was here That you have multiple series of movies And what happened in the previous movie You have to remember to understand this movie also So now you can see People are so lost in that They forget the world They remember the movie characters That is true But the point is people do Nothing can completely In this world Nothing is a complete curse And nothing is a complete blessing So when I say IQ is increasing What it means is The capacity to process complex stimuli Has increased Complex stimuli not necessarily complex concepts But complex stimuli That’s why when you see people are distracted Through technology what happens is They are getting so many dazzling stimuli That real life doesn’t hold their attention So But so many dazzling stimuli Come in through technology And people can process it So in that sense The capacity to process complexity has increased So that way technology Has increased Now you can say IQ has increased But EQ has decreased And that is also true And SQ has become 0 only So there are You could argue that the Problems are bigger than the blessings But that sort of argument is a separate issue Our topic was not that today Our topic today was not technology, blessing or curse Our topic was science and spirituality Ok So thank you very much Srimad Bhagavad Gita Ki Shila Prabhupada Ki Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Ki Jai I Gaur Premanandi