Science Misses the Point
BY: MAYESVARA DASA (ACBSP)
Jan 29, USA (SUN) — Upcoming program at American Vedic Association, Ojai, California – Tuesday, Feb 2nd, 2010.
Science Misses The Point
We can't see electricity, gravity, or the soul but we can measure their presence. Science is obsessed with the physical, but remains ignorant about the soul which migrates from boyhood, to youth, to old age and eventually to a new body at death. Learn the Science of soul migration at the next AVA Meeting. 7:30PM / 687 West Villanova Road - 640-0405 Always Free!
On Tuesday, Feb 2, 2010...
TIME: 7:30pm
AT: American Vedic Association
STREET: 687 West Villanova Road
CITY: Ojai, California, 93023
PHONE: (805) 640-0405
C/O: mayesvara dasa ACBSP AKA: William Roberts MBA/MIS, CCP
...Come join this wonderful evening that includes:
Congregational Mantra Meditation
A short study in Sanskrit
A FREE Vegetarian Feast and
A Bona-fide Sat-sanga where we will discuss:
Current Events:
Special Premier Showing of: "Incident at Lotus Park"
Introducing Anadi dasa
It was well over three years ago when I went to the large ISKCON New Dwarka Temple Complex of Rukmini & Dwarkadisha in Los Angeles and sat with Anadi dasa while he mused over his latest Idea for the LA Rathayatra play. For over 20 years Anadi Prabhu has scripted a new play for this huge public event nearly every year. As such he can be arguably considered to be one of the most prolific Vaishnava playwrights in modern times! He not only authors some of the most creative scripts for teaching Krishna Conscious philosophy, but he also recruits the cast for each part and then spends hours directing them how to complete the performance. In many cases he also spent large amounts of his own earnings to purchase props, costumes, special effects and various other things necessary to make these dramas real treat for the thousands of people who attend Rathayatra every year.
Producing an effective dramatic performance with a Krishna Conscience theme all by oneself is no small task. But Anadi stuck to his vision, completed the script and coordinated a knock-out cast of characters to stage the live performance of Incident at Lotus Park several times. He also arranged to have several cameras captured the show on video tape and spent the last year huddled over his Mac-Pro computer absorbed in the Final Cut Pro movie editor putting it all together. He emerged from this tedious task last December with a 35 minute masterpiece that promises to set a new standard for dramatic videos in the Vaishnava community!
Incident at Lotus Park is not only a rapid moving script based on true events from British Occupied India, but it was filmed in High Definition BluRay Technology and includes a soundtrack that required eight different audio streams. Incident at Lotus Park uses a variety of special effects to dramatize the historic plight of Ajamila and his unexpected stunning encounter with both the Vishnuduttas (Demingod servants of Vishnu.) and the Yamaduttas (Really nasty agents of the underworld).
ANADI DASA GUEST Speaker Feb 2, 2010!
I am very pleased to announce that Anadi dasa has agreed to be the guest speaker at our February 2, AVA Meeting. He will give a short narrative of how the movie was made, and then show the film on a 47" HDTV. After the film is over he will accept questions from the audience and share his own stories related to his extraordinary career of writing plays about Krishna for over a quarter of a century!
The AVA Program on February 2 will be very special and entertainment rich! I greatly encourage all of the AVA members who are unable to regularly attend our gatherings to seriously consider coming to this special screening of Incident at Lotus Park .
This Issue HOT LINK: Incident At Lotus Park
I am confident that those who make it to the Ojai premier of Incident at Lotus Park will be quite moved by this unique memorial rendition of the classic story about Ajamila. If you are not already convinced to mark your calendar and join us for the exciting evening, then please be sure to see the trailer, which I am providing here as this month's HOT LINK, Perhaps this short clip will convince you to join us on the Evening of February 2.
LINK
Prelude to This Month's Feature Article
Science Misses The Point
Science is Over- Rated!
For the most part modern man has replaced religion with science. We put our faith in it and spend so much money for new research it is not unreasonable to suggest we worship science. Science has such an iron grip on society that the Christian faith is struggling desperately to figure out how to reconcile Biblical theology with the information Scientists are declaring as absolute certainties. The most obvious example of this is the battle between Evolutionists and the traditional seven day creationists. One of the ways creationists attempt to reconcile this difference is by expanding the idea of a 24 hour day into "Days" that last for a millennia. The Christians "Scientists" who produce the "Creation" magazine are even bolder. They assert that conventional methods like radioactive dating, archeology and the fossil record are NOT supported by rigorous empirical science! They insist that we must therefore discard those theories in light of the Bible's declaration that the world is slightly older then just 5000 years!
Many of the computer scientists I work with as a Database Engineer for the UA NVY Port Hueneme Survace Warefar Center consider themselves to be hard core rational scientific thinkers. Some may hold on to a simplified concept of a "Higher Power" but for the most part they fall into the category of: "If I can't see it with some type of measurable instrument, then it' doesn't exist! Religion, Faith, and particularly the concept of God are all therefore considered by these folks as psychological crutches for the emotionally weak. They contend that those things which can't be repeatedly measured and studied with traditional scientific methods all fall into the category of "Blind Faith".
What my colleagues and their friends the Athiests always fail to realize is that modern day Science is subordinate to philosophy. A rigorous thinker knows that before one assumes that scientific research will provide us accurate information about the subtle nature of our human condition, we must first philosophically inquire to see if it is even possible of doing that. When we look as science from a philosophical point of view we can quickly understand what the problem is with relying on science in order to understand the world we live in.
Silly Rationalists!
What the "Rationalists" are unable to address is how is it possible for the flawed human being to understand anything correctly? It doesn't matter how many people you put into a scientific laboratory to study an event, every one of those researchers are handicapped by: 1) Imperfect Senses, 2) The inclination to Cheat. 3) The possibility of making mistakes, and the 4) Propensity to perceive things incorrectly due to illusions. Since the beginning of he Industrial age we have seen how some of the things that were promoted based on "Scientific Evidence" has had to be recalled later due to one of these unavoidable human flaws.
Therefore at best, science means mealy guessing. If we want to understand things correctly, we MUST approach an absolute source that is beyond the flaws of human endeavor. Of course this flies right in the faith of all the New-Age pseudo-spiritualists who preach everything can be found within you thru self-examination or by silent meditation. However serious transcendentalists do not try to rationalize away the influence of the Four Flaws. When someone actually grasps this important point, they can immediately realize that the Prophets of the New Age don't know what they are talking about either!
Science Stumbles over Consciousness
We have become so enamored by the bluffing nature of speculative science many people fail to see the obvious glaring omissions by those who worship high science. The truth is that scientists can not explain where consciousness originated from, and what its constitutional nature is. They may be able to pinpoint where the various nerve endings that animate our senses are in the brain but they do not know where the amalgamation of mind, intelligence, and ego (Consciousness) actually resides in the body! Yet everyone experiences consciousness so we know it exists!
Science can't tell us much abut consciousness, but that is the primary subject of all Vedic knowledge. From the Bhagavad Gita we learn that the Soul exists eternally as the non-material spark, and it is that soul which is responsible for animating the entire body.
Sun Verse.
Science Misses the Point
Science is preoccupied with only studying Krishna's inferior material energy which it temporary and therefore illusionary. The irony is that the general pubic funds all sorts of scientific research but for the most part Science is reticent about no being willing to study the nature of the soul with the same type of alacrity it has for splitting the atom. After all, if the soul is eternal, then knowing where it will be heading after this body collapses should be of great interest to us all. Unfortunatly the science we see practied today is a classic example of what the metaphor, "Arranging pool chairs on the deck of the Titanic!" is referring to!
Main Article by HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Science Misses The Point
Modern Science: Simply Bluffing
This conversation between His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Thoudam Singh, Ph.D., took place in Bhubanesvara, India, on February 3, 1977
Dr. Singh: Many of my scientific colleagues say that intelligence is simply a molecular interaction within the brain.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: Some molecular interaction may be occurring, but the interaction is not simply molecular. Intelligence has to do with the soul, not simply with the brain.
Dr. Singh: They say the brain is the source of intelligence.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: No. Take electricity, for example. Electricity moves between gross elements and through a gross wire. But the electricity itself -- it is not those elements, not that wire. It is subtle.
Dr. Singh: Yes, it is subtle, but --
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: You cannot see this subtle thing directly; you can see it only when it interacts with something gross. But the subtle thing is independent and distinct from the gross things.
Dr. Singh: That is actually true. That's a fact. For example, when we speak of Newton's law of gravitation, we can establish a mathematical formula, but we do not know how gravitation acts.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: Not directly seen.
Dr. Singh: Yes. Even though gravitation does exist, we can't really see it. Modern science admits that. Newton himself admitted that.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: So although we cannot see the soul directly, why not admit that it exists? The soul is the most subtle, but we can see it through its effects. So why not admit it exists?
Dr. Singh: Yes. Far too many scientists have left the soul out of their discussion of reality. Instead, they try to reduce reality to matter. And yet we see the existence of the soul. It is beyond our comprehension, but it exists. We should not ignore the soul simply because it is inconceivable.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: Actually the soul is conceivable, because we can understand much about it by observing the way it interacts with matter. Yet largely the soul is outside our experience.
Dr. Singh: Yes.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: So the soul is not inconceivable. It is conceivable.
Dr. Singh: Oh, yes. Again, if we take the example of physical phenomena and laws, we can perceive that they exist, but precisely how they exist we do not know.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: That is another thing. But you have to admit they exist. And we have to accept that the soul exists.
Dr. Singh: Yes. That is the missing point in modern science.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: The mind exists, the intelligence exists, the sense of ego exists, the soul exists-although they are not entirely perceivable by our gross senses.
Dr. Singh: So consciousness, the soul, exists -- independent and distinct from matter.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: Yes. This you have to bring into the scientists' discussion. Now they should begin to inquire, How does the soul enter the subtle material situation? How does the soul create and enter a subtle or mental body? And how does this subtle body create the gross situation, the gross body? At the present moment, the scientists are stressing the gross situation. But the subtle situation -- they have no knowledge. And yet the subtle situation can be perceived.
Dr. Singh: Yes, that is true.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: So you have to convince other scientists. This subtle mental, intellectual, and psychological situation is so very important. It can carry the soul to the spiritual world. But one has to make himself fully spiritualized, fully devoted to the Lord. At the time you pass from your gross body, if you have made your subtle body fully spiritualized, then it will carry you to the spiritual world.
So just consider how critically important is this Krsna conscious culture, this spiritual culture. Just consider. And yet these so-called scientists who are setting society's cultural tone -- they know nothing of this true culture. Nothing.
We can perceive two energies -- para and apara, the higher and lower -- spirit and matter. And we get confirmation from Lord Krsna. In Bhagavad-gita He discusses His two energies in these very terms, para and apara: higher and lower -- spirit and matter. So the soul in the material world is situated between this apara, or inferior, material energy and the para, or superior, spiritual energy. This subtle situation, his subtle body, is his medium back to the spiritual world. If the soul makes his subtle body -- his mind, intelligence, and self-identification, or ego -- spiritualized, then he goes to the spiritual world.
You see? If the soul spiritualizes his mind and intelligence and ego -- if he focuses them on his actual, spiritual identity and his loving relationship with Krsna the Supreme Spirit -- then he will be transferred to the spiritual world. This you have to prove or demonstrate in scientific terms. These pseudo-scientists are seeing simply the gross situation, the gross body. That's all.
They see the gross body functioning for some time and then ceasing to function, and they think, "This person was living, but now he is living no more." No, the soul is always living. But now he is being carried to another situation, another life, by the subtle situation he created in this life.
These pseudo-scientists are thinking, "This gross situation, this gross body, is finished -- everything is finished." That's not the fact. Krsna confirms,
dehino 'smin yatha dehe kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati
"As the soul passes, in this lifetime, from a childhood body to a teenage body to an old-age body, so at the time of death he passes into still another body."- (Bhagavad-Gita Gita As It Is Chapter 2 "Contents of the Gita Summarized", Text 13)
Dr. Singh: That is a drawback in modern science.
HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami: Without this spiritual perspective, everything they say is a drawback. Simply bluffing:
yasyasti bhaktir bhagavaty akincana sarvair gunais tatra samasate surah
harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-guna manorathenasati dhavato bahih
"All the demigods and their exalted qualities, such as religion, knowledge and renunciation, become manifest in the body of one who has developed unalloyed devotion for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vasudeva. On the other hand, a person devoid of devotional service and engaged in material activities has no good qualities. Even if he is adept at the practice of mystic yoga or the honest endeavor of maintaining his family and relatives, he must be driven by his own mental speculations and must engage in the service of the Lord's external energy. How can there be any good qualities in such a man?" (Srimad Bhagavat Purana Canto 5, "The Creative Impetus" , Chapter 18, "The Prayers Offered to the Lord by The Residents of Jambudvipa", Text 12)
Anyone who does not use his human intelligence to spiritualize himself, to become a devotee of the Lord -- his whole life is a drawback.
"Modern Science – Simply Bluffing"
(Back To Godhead Magazine – 22-07, 1987)
