Why are the Bhagavatam’s and science’s conceptions of the universe so different?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
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The question is that scientists they conceive the universe as very long in terms of light years whereas from the Bhagavatam we know that the universe is finite and then each of the, the universe itself is covered by various layers which are all of increasing thickness. So where does science conception of the universe go wrong? Actually the Bhagavatams and science conceptions they operate from two different paradigms. Two different paradigms, two different ways of looking at the world and you know these two different paradigms were there even within the Indian tradition, Vedic tradition.
That means that when you talk about cosmology there is a Puranic cosmology or the Bhagavatam cosmology and there is a whole another system of cosmology which is called as Jyotishya cosmology, Jyotishya Shastras. Bhaktishyamsuri Thakur was very learned in one of the Jyotishya Shastra that was a Surya Siddhanta. He wrote a commentary on that.
Now if we look at the Bhagavatam’s cosmology and we look at the Jyotishya cosmology, there is a huge amount of difference between them and many of the eminent mathematicians in India like Aryabhatta, Bhaskaracharya, Madhvacharya, not the Madhvacharya Vishnacharya, Madhvacharya was a famous mathematician also. Now they have all expressed bewilderment in understanding the Bhagavatam’s cosmology. And further if we see in India there is a well-developed astrological tradition where astrology is to a large extent connected with astronomy.
We need to know the movements of the celestial positions and movements of the celestial bodies for the sake of calculating auspicious and inauspicious times. Now all these astrological calculations use the Jyotishya cosmology. None of them use the Bhagavatam’s cosmology.
In fact if we take the Bhagavatam’s cosmology then we can’t even at least with what information that is given we can’t even from our perception explain satisfactorily how the alteration of days and nights occurs. The sun is going round in the Bhagavatam’s cosmology. So the point which I am making over here is that these two different ways of looking at the cosmology, it’s not only science versus Bhagavatam.
Rather within the tradition that is accepted by our Acharyas there is a Bhagavatam’s cosmology and then there is a Jyotishya cosmology. Even for example Jiva Goswami in Gopal Chanku and Sanatana Goswami in Brihad-Vaishnav Tika, Brihad-Vaishnav Toshni which is the 10th century commentary. They talk elaborately about the time of the birth of Krishna and that time they talk about the constellations and the calculations which they do and again for this they don’t use the Bhagavatam cosmology at all.
They use the Jyotishya cosmology. So for all practical operational purposes even within religious contexts the cosmology that was used was the Jyotishya cosmology. So the Bhagavatam cosmology has never been used to practically calculate anything nor has it been used even none of our Vaishnav Acharyas because as I said there are glaring contradictions within the Bhagavatam’s cosmology and the Jyotishya cosmology and none of our Acharyas use the Bhagavatam’s cosmology to try to prove that the Jyotishya cosmology is false.
So rather than seeing that as contradictory the understanding was that they are different scales of perception. In one of the Puranas I forget which it is mentioned that Maitreya Rishi once he entered into a trance because he was meditating on the Puranic cosmology and he just couldn’t make sense of it and at that time I just couldn’t make sense of it he entered into a trance and then it was like he suddenly felt himself being lifted up and he was taken to a heavenly perspective and when he fell on that heavenly perspective then he was able to make sense okay this is the Veru Parva this is like this this is like this and then he was able to make some sense of it. So the Bhagavatam when it describes cosmology it is not from the human perspective it is from a celestial or a divine perspective and the from the human perspective so our Acharyas certainly accepted the Bhagavatam’s cosmology but they did not use it to challenge the cosmology that was used for operational purposes that was based on Jyotishya Shastras and Jyotishya Shastras cosmology it also gives us like modern science it has a model for explaining cosmos within us to us now that model for us as common people how do we know it’s that model is true ultimately within science itself there’s a big debate whether does science offer us an understanding of reality or does science offer as a model of reality that means we have some representation of reality which science is offering us or is science telling us reality as it is so when Newtonian classical physics was ruling towards the end of the 19th century early part of the 20th century physicists did think that this is how nature is nature is made of atoms and atoms are moving around but then at the start of the 21st century at the start of the 20th century there is two big explosions in science one was quantum physics and the other was relativity and classical physics practically lay in ruins at least classical physics claims of explaining all of nature that lay in ruins so now most scientists use what they call as the functional view of science it is a functional view of science and ontological view of science functional means this is the model that works use it ontological means this is the nature of reality now relativity and physics quantum physics they are violently contradictory relativity says that there are particles existing quantum physics says there are no particles only waves exist and nobody knows how to reconcile them so what do scientists do whichever model works they use it so the point which i am making is that science offers us a particular model of reality and that model does work in its own way now Prabhupada yes Prabhupada did say that that particular quote he said that whatever scientists say we oppose but then Prabhupada also used the products of science he used planes he used microphone he used dictaphone so and they worked so there is another famous conversation of Prabhupada or it’s not so famous where Prabhupada says that the devotees are talking and Prabhupada says we are not against the scientist’s spirit of wanting to know we are against their claim that there is no God that means now if you look at Prabhupada is making a very profound point over here what has happened in history of science is a gradual overconfidence in human ability gradual overconfidence in human ability originally when Newton or Copernicus when they studied the cosmos they wanted to understand how God is running the cosmos so the stars and the planets are moving by the law of gravity but the law of gravity comes from God the law of gravity is maintained by God so they they had a very theistic conception of the universe even when they had some laws talked about but as subsequently scientists came forward science seems to get more and more control over nature they felt that there is no need for God so theism holds that God is the creator and God is the controller atheism holds that atheism holds that God is neither the creator nor the controller God just doesn’t exist in between from the time of Newton who was a pioneering scientist and who was a believer to today’s mainstream scientists most of them are agnostics if not atheists most scientists are not atheists but they are at least operationally agnostics so what happened in between was there from theism to atheism in between came the world view of deism deism is God is the creator but not the controller God created the world but now afterward the world runs according to laws like a clock a clock is made by a designer but the designer has no control over the clock he set according the mechanism and it’s working so that became the conception of God also so yes God is a creator but he’s not in control now so therefore we have to understand the mechanism and we have to control the mechanism so that’s how science started overreaching so then yes there are mechanisms according to which the world works that’s fine enough but to think that we can become the supreme controllers of scientific knowledge that is where science comes in so why I’m giving this background is if you look at Prabhupada’s critique sometimes some some sound bites from Prabhupada’s statements are highlighted disproportionately and then you know what Prabhupada said might not be accurately represented so my point is that Prabhupada also used science and he wanted science to be used for building temples for for building for printing his books so we can’t say that Prabhupada was entirely against science because Prabhupada used and and also recommended he mentioned a philosophical principle whatever can be used in service of Krishna we will use it so Prabhupada’s opposition primarily was to the atheism that is promoted in the name of science and with respect to cosmology the Bhagavatam offers the particular cosmology but that cosmology is not from the human perspective and to use that cosmology to try to challenge or even to bring that into even a dialogue with modern cosmology it’s just two different models they cannot be brought they they cannot be even brought into dialogue or to speak of confrontation because they’re just two different ways of looking at reality so just like in an earlier class I gave the example of how Ayurveda and Ayurvedic they do different modes of medicine and Ayurveda has a concept of heat in the body this is the heat increases allopathy doesn’t have that concept of heat but so both of them work in their own way both of them have their utility and different people at different times may use different modes of medicine so like that the Bhagavatam’s cosmology if you look at it at the start at the end no it starts with 15 chapter and it ends with the 25th chapter so at one time for about a couple of years I was also part of the planetarium team and we did a lot of study at that time and if you see in those 15 10 chapters there are not more than a few hundred verses about cosmology and even within those verses there is not much cosmological description there is more of theological description this is the Jambudweepa is there and on this planet the people are worshipping this manifestation of Hari and these are the prayers thereof and if you look at the start and at the end the primary description over there is of by meditating on this one can turn one’s mind towards Hari the focus of that is to fix the mind on Krishna now with the description that is given in the Bhagavatam now what to speak of challenging modern scientific cosmology we can’t even conceive the Bhagavatam’s cosmos and it’s not we the Bhagavatam itself says that even Brahmaji cannot conceive it so even if we had Brahmaji in our planetarium team still we would be in trouble so now trying to construct the planetarium or construct a model of the cosmos using the Bhagavatam’s description of cosmology is like some historian 500 years later suppose assume you know all the history all the geography books of the world have been destroyed and the only book that the person has is Prabhupada Nilamrut and based on Prabhupada Nilamrut suppose that historian wants to construct a map of America yes Prabhupada went eastward, Prabhupada went northward, Prabhupada went southwards that all that will be there but Nilamrut is not a geography book it will be next to impossible to try to construct a map of America using Nilamrut similarly you have to try to construct a planetarium’s model a coherent model which which will be intelligible Prabhupada wanted four things we should be able to explain the alteration of day and night we should be able to explain the phases of the moon we should be able to explain the alteration of seasons and we should be able to explain the eclipses with the description that we have in the Bhagavatam none of these are explainable and that’s why Prabhupada said you go and find some expert and with the help of that expert some traditional scholar may be in the Vishwa Sampradaya, Madha Sampradaya try to find some scholar and try to understand till now nobody has found a scholar like that so now some model is being constructed but a lot of things from other books are being imported to try to understand and those other books have many other conceptions how much they are accurate with how much they actually gel with what is there in the Bhagavatam that is a matter of debate so the Bhagavatam’s vision of planetarium or Bhagavatam’s vision of cosmology is primarily to help us turn our mind towards God even within the Vedic tradition it was never used for operational purposes for astrological or astronomical calculations so we live today in a world where even now there are traditional astrologers who use Jyotisha cosmology for understanding and operating the cosmos and doing astrological calculations so that is a model which works and science offers another model of reality which also works in its own so rather than seeing that these two are there are definitely many features of science model of reality which are wrong definitely but there are also features of it which work and that’s how we are able to use technology that’s how the world is using so much technology so to try to sort of envision an inherent and irreconcilable conflict between Bhagavatam and science I think that is an oversimplification they both are very complex they both have their purposes and certainly there will be some areas of conflict but whether everything is inherently in conflict because as I said the Bhagavatam is not meant to give us a empirical description of the cosmos as we can perceive it and lastly with respect to light years the Bhagavatam’s description of space now whether that is to be that is the same or rather Bhagavatam’s description of distances whether that is exactly the same as we understand distance now that is itself a whole subject of discussion because at various levels in the Bhagavatam talks about Yojanam, Bhagavatam uses the word Yojanam but within the Indian tradition itself the word Yojan talks about different distances and further in the Bhagavatam when we generally consider heaven to be up when we talk about heaven as up the Bhagavatam also has the conception the earth is a sphere the earth is a sphere and where is up you know in Australia one side is up in Europe another side is up in India one side is up America another side is up so Siddharth Pramod in his Vedic Cosmography his book he talks about how the Bhagavatam’s cosmology has a vertical dimension which is which has a karmic aspect to it that means you know when Bhagavatam says you go up to the heavens and heaven is up that is not just simply geographically or geometrically up there is a karmic up to it and within that karmic up also there are some dimensions of distances given now how those dimensions of distances correlate with our with the conception of distance that is there within modern science it’s very doubtful whether there’s a simplistic correlation between the two because the Bhagavatam is talking about much subtler concepts so the that basically the two are different models of working of looking at the cosmos and yes scientists go wrong because they start with the presumption that there’s no God and even when the evidence points towards God they reject that evidence that is definitely wrong but beyond that in an operational sense when as as devotees we can actually see the hand of God even within the knowledge of science is revealed that means when we see that some I’ll conclude at this point this answer is becoming a little technical but as devotees if you look at the Bhagavatam now if you see there’s a sequence which is often lost in this verse Krishna is saying material nature works under my supervision this one part of it but the other part of the verse is under its law all the changes happen or under its supervision under its cause and effect so the we have Isha Upanishad saying that the lord is complete and the earth is also come and the whatever emanates from is complete so even the universe is complete in itself that means the universe is a complete system and complete system means there are mechanisms by which it will function so science when it shows us some mechanisms when it shows us the mechanisms it’s not necessarily contradicted to what Shastra tells us just like science doesn’t inquire far enough to go to the cause of those mechanisms it’s assumed the mechanisms are there Shastra takes us beyond the mechanisms to their cause so it’s not that scripture is an explanatory alternative to science scripture or rather God when scripture talks about God God is not an explanatory alternative to science God is the explanatory foundation for science when I say God is not an explanatory alternative for science that doesn’t mean that because science can’t explain it so therefore we need God to explain it it’s not that there’s a competition between God and science science capacity to explain comes from God God is the explanatory foundation for science so the systems that are there in nature the mechanisms that are there in nature science uncovers they are they do work and their workability is what makes technology happen but that is not all that is there to nature so they are when we try when we bring script when we position scripture as a competitor of science so we devalue scripture we devalue scripture because scripture is concerned with far more lofty purposes than trying to give us the mechanisms of certain how things work in this world scripture’s consistent teaching is that material world is temporary and we need to go beyond the material world so scripture may give us some material knowledge also now how that material knowledge is to be reconciled with the knowledge that we acquire from our self-perception or with the knowledge which was used even in the tradition as a yogi shastra that is something which even the past acharyas were not able to conceive so if we are not able to reconcile the bhagavatam’s cosmology with the currently prevailing body of knowledge that is science i don’t think that’s a very serious deficiency so there is paravidya and there is aparavidya the bhagavatam’s primary contribution is paravidya and as far as aparavidya paravidya is transcendental knowledge aparavidya is material knowledge material knowledge prabhupada for example he talked about ayurveda he practiced ayurveda he used ayurveda but he was not a fanatic for that no he said whatever works he used it he sometimes used allopathy himself once in london he did a surgery for disciples he told whatever work he used it so like that for us no if science science offers some knowledge which you can use in krishna’s service we will use it but we won’t let science determine our conception of the purpose of life we won’t let science become the judge for deciding whether god exists or not soul exists or not whether bhakti is for real or not but they are science and scripture are often those different models of reality that are not necessarily contradictory or even competition they’re just like different scales of reality