What is the scientific evidence for incarnations other than Krishna?

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
for the many of the incarnations we don’t have adequate historical proof so either some people think of it as mythological others treat it as metaphorical meant for drawing some lessons so how do we understand these past times did this happen on this planet or other planets firstly we have to understand the way we study history right now is a very recent historical phenomenon prior to newton and the newtonian way of doing knowledge the purpose of history was not material fact-keeping the the purpose of history was not precise recollection the purpose of history was moral instruction whether we look at greco-roman history whoever are the thinkers were there for example the history of the roman empire empires or prior to that the greek philosophers so people are not really concerned about precise facts because the focus of history is not just to know at least before the newtonian way of looking at knowledge came up the purpose of history was not to know exactly what happened but to learn from it principles for learning so that’s why in the past people did not bother about keeping precise evidences for what happened one of the characteristics of the modern way of acquiring knowledge is doubt the default attitude is doubt as soon as you tell something you try to find out how it is so this was not the attitude in the past and that’s why people often didn’t bother about keeping precise historical records so as far as the avataras are concerned we have to understand that we cannot apply one approach of acquiring knowledge on knowledge that is acquired or taught using another approach just like to give a simple example for this now we have ayurveda and allopathy both are systems for taking care of health but you say in allopathy the concept is you have to have a good jatharagana good digestive fire strong digestive fire is essential for health and now if you look at allopathy there is no concept of digestive fire the whole concept is not there why is that because it’s a different way of looking at things so now it is not that ayurveda is right or allopathy is right it is just that there are different ways of acquiring knowledge and if we try to evaluate ayurveda using allopathy we will feel that ayurveda is all counterfactual and if we try to evaluate allopathy using ayurveda we say allopathy is very aggressive interview so whatever so the point is that we if we are patients what do we do but if i am sick you know i don’t go and do a doctoral thesis on ayurveda then do a doctoral thesis on allopathy and then decide which is the best treatment then i take the treatment oh if i have a sickness i’ll die before i do any of the thesis isn’t it we see for us which makes sense and which works which makes sense and which works and then we adopt that system so similarly when we approach scripture now if we approach scripture with the attitude of evaluating all the facts in scripture with the attitude of modern science if you study scripture through the lens of modern science scripture it will be very difficult to make sense of scripture because there are two different ways of acquiring knowledge now important thing is that it is we may say but science gives us knowledge why should we not approach with science why should we not approach scripture through uh material or scientific historicity history is basically knowledge of history historicity is the uh is the historical authenticity of something or the evidences that prove the historical authenticity of something so these are two different branches of knowledge so science focuses on certain things but even within the scientific world view as it exists there are many things are left out science is like a map for understanding the world you know there was a famous uh author EF Shoemaker he wrote a book called small is beautiful so he describes in my journey that he describes his experiences he went to Russia at that time it was USSR and then he had a map of Moscow and he was going around Moscow and he said that i’m confused i can see all these big big churches but i don’t see any of the churches on the map so he is confused and his travel guide asked what is the problem he said i don’t know any churches he said the Russian government the Soviet government has a policy not to show any churches on the map because communism was officially atheistic and Karl Marx considered that religion is the opium of the masses so they wanted to destroy religion so that the churches actually existed but in the map they had a by policy they would not show the churches so science as it is taught in today’s educational system is like that science as a matter of policy does not mention anything spiritual science looks for material causes for material phenomena and it does not explore anything non-material now there are some scientists who are atheists all scientists are not atheists so there are some scientists who this is a methodology of science it is called to be technical it is called methodological naturalism naturalism the way scientists use it it is materialism basically so the methodology we will look for material causes for material phenomena but some scientists go from methodological naturalism to metaphysical naturalism metaphysical naturalism means they say that metaphysically in terms of physics nothing apart from the material exists so the first the approach of science is that nothing apart from the material matters and the approach of atheists is nothing apart from the material exists but the important thing is scientific worldview itself leaves a lot out it does not tell us four things broadly speaking it does not tell us anything about the values what is right what is wrong now science can tell us that if we put arsenic in our grandmother’s breakfast we can get her inheritance soon but science itself cannot tell us whether we should do such a thing or we should not do such a thing science cannot tell us anything about origin where everything came from that is the question beyond science science cannot tell us anything about purpose what is it that we are living for science cannot tell us anything for qualities i have got a whole seminar on science and spirituality and basically science and spirituality largely talk about two different domains of knowledge so again four things i said quickly values origin purpose and qualities qualities means that when i see a red color for example this is red i i don’t just see the redness it is not just red uh the wavelength the electromagnetic is corresponding to red are entering my eyes but actually i am experiencing redness a camera may also see this redness but it cannot experience this so the experience of redness is something which science can’t explain for example if i’m doing some if you’re making a poster and use photoshop you know the computer can tell us this is the percentage okay you’re 33% red 43% green 7% yellow but the photograph cannot the computer cannot tell us this is a beautiful image that is something the observer has to say so the experiences of qualities now we can have uh we can have a cooking machine which can tell us okay this has been now this has been cooked for 15 minutes or this has resulted to this temperature but the oven no matter how sophisticated it is it cannot tell the cake is delicious it’s it’s not a matter of greater scientific progress no it is it is just no matter how much scientific science progresses further we will get knowledge more and more of facts but values purpose origin qualities these are not materially quantifiable these are not mathematically measurable and when we study scripture we do it for a different purpose so when we focus on scripture if we try to certainly we can get some even when you talk about evidence for krishna’s existence yes what can we get the evidence for we can get the evidence that there was there is there are archaeological findings in dwarka there is a there is a dwarka which has been inundated under the indian ocean so we can say there was a we may find some artifacts over there which prove that there was maybe 5000 years ago uh yeah the yadu prince named krishna over there but that also cannot prove to us that krishna lifted govardhana so all that we can know through history is that a person called krishna existed but if you want to understand god we have to adopt a different approach and the point which i made but science has its limitations the purpose of that is not to criticize science it is to simply contextualize science science is one way of acquiring knowledge and it is not an exhaustive way of acquiring knowledge it gives us a lot of knowledge about one thing but it doesn’t give us everything about everything so just like if i say the president of america is not the king of the whole world i’m not disrespecting the president of america with the i’m just telling the fact if the president of america feels disrespected then that’s his ego so similarly if we point out the limitations of science we are not criticizing science we are simply pointing out that science is a powerful branch of knowledge but it is a branch of knowledge which focuses on certain things if somebody thinks of it as criticism that is unfortunate so science is one way of acquiring knowledge and spirituality actually focuses on these things only values purpose origin qualities so the purpose of spirituality is different and that’s why when we study scripture initially we may get some faith by looking at how there is scientifically verifiable knowledge in scripture but after some time we have to focus on the higher knowledge that is given in scripture if we position science and scripture as competitors now science is here scripture is here and they are competitors by positioning science and scripture as competitors we devalue scripture we devalue scripture scripture you know Prabhupada did not come to tell us how to cure malaria you know Prabhupada did not come to tell us how to use email that so many other people can tell us Prabhupada came to tell us how to love Krishna so by by and scripture is taught for that purpose see Arjuna fought the Kurukshetra war it was not in the Bhagavad Gita like sometimes some people make exaggerated claims like there is some politician who says Bhagavad Gita contains the solution to all problems now this is not a precise statement Bhagavad Gita contains the principles that can help us to use the different branches of knowledge for solving various problems it teaches the principles of living it is not that Bhagavad Gita contains knowledge of black holes it doesn’t contain knowledge about how to cure AIDS it doesn’t contain knowledge of how to manage the nation’s finances it contains principles of living so what happened when Arjuna spoke the Bhagavad Gita sorry Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna won it restored Arjuna’s determination it restored Arjuna’s confidence it purified Arjuna’s motivation and after that Arjuna used the knowledge of archery which he had learned earlier to fight and win the war so the Bhagavad Gita will give gave spiritual direction for the knowledge of archery that Arjuna had similarly for us we have knowledge in various branches scientific knowledge also one branch of knowledge and Prabhupada said a scientist should use the scientific knowledge to glorify God so we shouldn’t position science and scripture as competitors that scripture gives us a different and a higher body of knowledge and by studying scripture with that focus we will be able to benefit from scripture otherwise if we adopt the scientific mental scientific attitude while studying scripture we will always be haunted by how is this possible how is this possible how is this possible well it is possible because when we approach God our definition of possible changes when we are studying with a scientific approach we think only the natural is possible whatever is naturally mathematically quantifiable whatever naturally observable that is possible but when we understand that God is omnipotent God is the source of everything then he redefines what is possible and so initially faith in science as a means of approaching God approaching spirituality that is fine we have some scientific evidence for existence of soul existence of God is all fine but eventually we need to change the way we are it is science we study for material knowledge whereas scripture we study for spiritual knowledge knowledge about how to live knowledge about how to what is the purpose for which you are living that is the science makes things better spirituality makes people better thank you very much