What to do if the mind gets caught in the sector of disagreement between science and scripture?

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Transcript

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caught in this circle where there is disagreement between scripture and science? So, first thing is, we always need good association. So, if somebody, don’t, if our mind is caught in this, nobody should become judgmental towards that person and say, you lack faith, you are a fallen person, you are offensive, you are this, you are that. There is no need to make this into a faith issue.
Now, faith is something which grows not organically. So, there are, even in a devotee circle, if we are there, this circle has to be addressed in a mature way. So, if somebody says that, say, did man go to the moon? Now, somebody says that, if you believe that man went to the moon, then you are non-devotee, you are atheist.
Who said that? That is just that one particular person’s judgment. So, the point is that, sometimes, when we are dealing with this circle, if we meet devotees who have very narrow understanding of things, then they make dealing with this almost impossible. They make it appear as if you have to accept this or get lost.
But it is not like that. We have to find out those devotees who have a proper understanding of this. So, I will give an example of how this happened in my own life.
In Nishla Prabhupada’s Leelamrit, there is a section where Prabhupada says that, in a morning walk, that by 2000, nobody will be able to live, the pollution on the land will be so great that nobody will be able to live on the surface of the land. Everybody will have to live like rats under the ground. Now, 2000 has come and gone.
We are not living underground. So, what is going on? Now, that is there in the book. Prabhupada said it.
He said, now, I asked this to one devotee and this devotee, nice devotee, but he said he was not the right person to ask this question. So, he said, actually, only when you have implicit faith in Guru and Krishna, can you understand this? And then he told me about one city in America, this was in India, one city in America, which is more or less wholly underground or one town, one community. He said, most of the city is underground.
I don’t know where it is. So, he said that, or maybe not exactly underground, it’s like the whole thing is covered. So, there is some, whatever.
So, maybe because of atmosphere or cold or whatever. In some universities, they have underground pathways. Anyway, but it’s not a pollution issue.
I think it’s a population issue. So, then he says, this has already started happening and it will happen in the future more. So, now, my point was, Prabhupada said, nobody will be able to live on the surface of the earth.
How do I understand this? He says, if you are doubting this, you are doubting Prabhupada. You are a doubter and you are doomed. I said, okay.
I just couldn’t make sense at that time. Then, I asked another devotee. In fact, I used to write articles for Back to God.
So, I just, I was corresponding with Nagaraj Prabhu and he sent me a mail in which just a few days before Prabhupada said this in a conversation. Now, there was a conversation which Prabhupada had and some devotees had brought a meteorological society’s report. Now, there are different societies which do research and some of these societies, they are not very reliable also.
They make dystopian reports. Dystopia means everything is going to be very bad in future. So, that meteorological society had reported that by 2000, nobody will be able to live on the surface of the earth.
And Prabhupada was just repeating that. So, what is happening here? What I thought was a disagreement between this circle. Now, actually, there was no disagreement because Prabhupada was not teaching the scripture truth over there.
Prabhupada had read something or heard something from somewhere and he was repeating that. And anyway, Prabhupada did not come, Prabhupada never said that I have come to make prophecies. And the purpose of my teaching is I will make this prophecy and this prophecy will come true.
Prabhupada was not in the prophecy business. So, my faith in Prabhupada doesn’t have to depend on the accuracy of one passing statement that he made sometime. Even if that statement has turned out to be false, Prabhupada did not get it from shastra and Prabhupada never said this is my main message.
So, we have to make sure that when we have this circle of disagreement, we have to associate with devotees who can help us rationally deal with this. If we associate with judgmental devotees, they will just make us, they will cast us as doubters and then they will make us feel bad about using our intelligence. As if to practice bhakti, we have to give up our intelligence.
No, that is not the process of bhakti. So, we need to associate with or seek guidance from devotees who are properly versed in the subject and can answer properly. This is vital.
Otherwise, this circle of disagreement can either shatter our faith or make us become intellectually paralyzed. Thinking that I have to give up my intelligence to practice my faith. But both can go together and for that we need to associate with devotees, consult devotees who have proper answers to these questions.
These are not easy questions to answer and different devotees may give different answers. And some devotees answers may not make sense to us. That is fine.
We can always look for some other devotee, some other senior devotee, some other learned devotee who can give an answer which makes sense to us. So, rather than, even if the mind obsesses on that, if the mind is caught in that, then tell people, don’t think about it, it’s not going to work. The mind is going to think about it.
So, then, how to deal with it intellectually as well as devotionally harmoniously? That we have to consult senior devotees and get the guidance on that. So, when I was teaching in IITs in India, there was one boy who was very disturbed when devotees came and told him that man did not go to the moon. And then I had a whole full long conversation with him which I put as an article on my website.
And after that conversation he was pacified. So, like that, if you have these issues, like you gave some couple of explanations how material science has its limitations, that spiritual, we cannot apply spiritual principles to material things, nor material principles to spiritual things. So, these are ways in, there are couple of ways in which this circle, this sector can be dealt with.
But each devotee may have to go through one’s own struggle. And for that struggle, find out the right senior devotee association who will give the answers which make sense to us.