Why do scriptures not describe technology such as bulbs?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
we hear in the past about say advanced technologies such as Pushpak Viman but we don’t hear of say bulbs or other such things by which we could say other kind of inventions we did not hear of in the past so there’s two things over here first is that are we studying scripture for what purpose are we studying scripture for Parikshit Maharaj when he is hearing the Bhagavatam or when when Arjuna is hearing the Bhagavad Gita their purpose is not to get material knowledge Arjuna they are not interested in technology at that time so when Balmukhi is he asks questions to Naraguni he is listening to the manifestation of the Ramayana he is not interested in technology the purpose in each of these cases say in the Bhagavatam it is to know the duty of a person who is about to die in Bhagavad Gita it is simply Dharma what is Dharma in Ramayana it is what are the characteristics of an ideal person so the scriptures they are actuated they begin they are driven by a particular driving question and that question is about generally about life’s meaning and purpose so while doing that while describing that there are descriptions of the life that was lived at that time the culture that was there at that time so that is that sort of description is incidental that is not the central theme of scripture so for example say if somebody was not going to America they say read Prabhupada’s Leela Amrit and then Prabhupada travelled this city that city that city that city and they read it all and if somebody tells us that ok based on reading Leela Amrit now you construct a map of America and that is going to be a very difficult thing to do yes there is some geographical description of America but the point of Leela Amrit is to describe Prabhupada’s life not to describe the geography of America so similarly when we are studying scripture we need to know what was the purpose of the original scriptures and our purpose needs to coincide with that purpose otherwise we will simply get distracted by hundreds and thousands of things how is this like this, how is that like that or why is this not there, why is that not there so now there are many other related subjects also discussed in scripture and we can learn from them learn about them also if that’s our interest but the primary purpose we have to be very clear scripture is there to give us knowledge about life about the essential values of life about life’s meaning and purpose and we focus on that now having said that as far as the technology is concerned in general if we look at scripture the overall ethos was to live in harmony with nature so living in harmony with nature means that when nature is awake wake up when nature is asleep we sleep so even when there are there are some extraordinary descriptions of high tech things say for example Ravana having a Vishwakulman or there being some celestial weapons now these are not routine things it’s not that anybody and everybody had a flying plane or it’s not that anybody and everybody had extraordinary weapons which could make which could make it appear as if a second sun that has come in the sky so that technology was esoteric esoteric means it was available for a few people it was not available for everyone and they also had it for specific purposes so the point I am making over here is that we don’t necessarily have an exhaustive description of what all was there and what all was not there in that past time so to say that a particular technology it is not we don’t hear description that does not necessarily mean it was not there the purpose is not to give an exhaustive cultural description certainly not an exhaustive technological description of the technology that was present in that time that’s not the purpose of the scripture secondarily because whatever technology is there the overall ethos was to live in harmony with nature so technology was available on an exceptional level for certain people who had done certain mystic powers or who had acquired certain training or done something like that so overall the ethos was to live in harmony with nature and because the scriptures primarily describe a life which is overall in harmony with nature that’s why we may not find all the technological gadgets that are described in today’s world in scripture scripture is spoken in a different culture, different time different age and actually there may be social cultural differences based on the history of that time for example if you look at even the even say the Mahabharata Mahabharata Ramayana or we look at Chaitanya Chaitanya one was about 5000 years ago now that’s 500 years ago there are substantial differences in the culture that is described in these two books because these books are describing events at different particular ethos or different particular ages, different particular times so in general whenever we are studying scripture or we are studying when we are studying scripture it is best not to position position scripture as a competitor of science science is giving me this knowledge, scripture is giving me this knowledge and we put them as competitors by positioning scripture as a competitor of science we devalue scripture scripture is giving us far higher knowledge you know I have a whole seminar on my website thespiritualscientist.com science and spirituality can they go together or spirituality in the age of science and main thing which I talk about is no matter how much science advances science cannot give us three fundamental items of knowledge knowledge of origin, knowledge of value and knowledge of purpose now where did we come from what is right what is wrong, values and purpose, what is life ultimately made for these are items about which science can never tell us and these are the central focus of scripture, so Parikshit Maharaj is not going to learn how to fly a plane better than what people in 21st century are flying that’s not the purpose so that’s why if we position scripture as a competitor of science we devalue scripture because we end up looking in scripture for something else whereas scripture is giving us something far more valuable far more consequential and far more useful, something that is not available through science, something that will never become available through science that is what scripture is giving us and that unique gift of scripture that is what we should focus on when we study scripture does that answer your question