“Philosophy of Consciousness” (SB 3.19.37)
Thompson examines a variety of traditional approaches for considering absolute truth, while also analyzing historical, academic, and philosophical perspectives. He then compares Sankarite concepts of impersonal Brahman, with the idea of energy fields described in modern physics, concluding with an evaluation of the efforts of the well-known theoretical physicist, David Bohm, who proposed to graft “consciousness” onto physics by adding “bliss” to the energy field. Thompson argues that Bohm’s attempt invites a number of philosophical challenges.
TRANSCRIPT: Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 19, Text 37. “Philosophy of Consciousness.” San Diego – April 15, 1992 / (068)
Introduction by Krishna Kripa Prabhu: The following is a lecture given by His Grace Sadaputa Prabhu on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Third Canto, 19th chapter, text 37. The lecture was given in San Diego on April 15th, 1992.
RLT [Text 37]:
O brāhmaṇas, anyone who hears, chants, or takes pleasure in the wonderful narration of the killing of the Hiraṇyākṣa demon by the Lord, who appeared as the first boar in order to deliver the world, is at once relieved of the results of sinful activities, even the killing of a brāhmaṇa.
[Purport]:
Since the Personality of Godhead is in the absolute position, there is no difference between His pastimes and His personality. Anyone who hears about the pastimes of the Lord associates with the Lord directly, and one who associates directly with the Lord is certainly freed from all sinful activities, even to the extent of the killing of a brāhmaṇa, which is considered the most sinful activity in the material world. One should be very eager to hear about the activities of the Lord from the bona fide source, the pure devotee. If one simply gives aural reception to the narration and accepts the glories of the Lord, then he is qualified. The impersonalist philosophers cannot understand the activities of the Lord. They think that all His activities are māyā; therefore they are called Māyāvādīs. Since everything to them is māyā, these narrations are not for them. Some impersonalists are reluctant to hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, although many of them are now taking an interest in it just for monetary gain. Actually, however, they have no faith. On the contrary, they describe it in their own way. We should therefore not hear from the Māyāvādīs. We have to hear from Sūta Gosvāmī or Maitreya, who actually present the narrations as they are, and only then can we relish the pastimes of the Lord; otherwise the effects on the neophyte audience will be poisonous.
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya
jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena
tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
śrī-caitanya-mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale
svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam
Translation:
O brāhmaṇas, anyone who hears, chants, or takes pleasure in the wonderful narration of the killing of the Hiraṇyākṣa demon by the Lord, who appeared as the first boar in order to deliver the world, is at once relieved of the results of sinful activities, even the killing of a brāhmaṇa.
So, this is summing up the story of the pastime of Lord Varāha and the killing of Hiraṇyākṣa. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda is pointing out in the purport that by hearing and chanting the pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in a proper frame of mind, one is actually associating directly with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So this is possible because Kṛṣṇa is absolute. And therefore anything connected with Kṛṣṇa if properly appreciated is actually non-different from Kṛṣṇa.
So you can actually come in contact with the absolute truth, the Supreme Absolute Truth, by hearing these pastimes. So that's the remarkable feature of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda also mentions the impersonalist philosophers and says that these narrations are not for them. So the concept of impersonalist philosophers is that the supreme absolute truth is something non-personal in nature, hence they're called impersonalists.
They also have an approach to understanding the absolute truth, which is different from that of the bhāgavatas or the devotees of the Lord. The devotees of the Lord want to glorify the past times of Kṛṣṇa. And in this way they actually come into the association of Kṛṣṇa. But if the Supreme Absolute Truth is something impersonal, then of course that method is not going to be appropriate for learning about the absolute truth. And in fact, the approach of the impersonalists is generally to understand the Supreme Absolute Truth through jñāna or knowledge. They want to use the power of their minds to figure out the nature of the absolute truth. So, this is a very standard thing for people to try to do, in all different human societies you find this kind of philosophy being presented.
[5:28]
Now, the original Māyāvādī philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya is quite curious because he actually accepts the reality of Kṛṣṇa. This isn't widely appreciated today. Nowadays, you'll find that Māyāvādī philosophy is accepted everywhere. In universities in the United States today, for example, it's respectable to be interested in Eastern philosophy, which means Māyāvādī philosophy. However, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not at all respectable. That's the situation.
So generally, though, people did not appreciate what Śaṅkarācārya was actually saying. Actually in his version, Kṛṣṇa is real. The different expansions of Viṣṇu are real. The demigods are real. Likewise, we're real, at least we're real on the same platform, but it's all māyā. And the absolute truth is the impersonal Brahman, about which any description you can give of it is false and misleading. Any concept that you have of it is also false because your concept is also māyā. So therefore it is beyond words. And so when he didn't say anything about it, except that people tend to go on saying quite a lot. But the key point there is that Śaṅkarācārya is saying that Kṛṣṇa is at least as real as we are, or as real as this world is. It's just that it's all māyā.
And also there's a pattern... within this māyā there's a pattern of cause and effect. And Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate cause within that pattern of cause and effect, which is māyā, which actually doesn't exist. This is the philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya. So, that's not generally recognized that Śaṅkarācārya would say that Kṛṣṇa's just as real as we are. So He actually exists.
This can be a little bit… can lead to tricky considerations because Śaṅkarācārya has some hymns in praise of Kṛṣṇa and they sound just like what you would hear from the devotees. But one shouldn't be fooled because in fact he's praising the glories of that which does not exist in the same sense that the world and ourselves also do not exist. The only thing that really exists is something about which any statements you make would be misleading. So that's the actual Śaṅkarācārya philosophy. It's a bit of a difficult philosophy. Now the philosophy which goes under the name of Śaṅkarācārya's philosophy, which is accepted widely today, would say that, yes, the world is māyā. We're also māyā as persons. We don't really exist. But the Kṛṣṇa exists to an even lesser extent because Kṛṣṇa's just mythology. That would be the modern accepted version.
And what you will find is that people try to graft together physics and Śaṅkarācārya's philosophy. The way they do that is say that the physicists are completely right in everything they say. In which case what they're saying is that reality consists ultimately of some kind of energy field, in which waves are propagating. And that's it. And everything that we see is produced from this energy field by transformations. And the name for this is evolution. So the energy field produced the Big Bang, and the Big Bang gasses condensed out, and galaxies condensed from the gasses. Stars formed, planets formed around the stars. This is all condensation. Just like in the morning, you'll see droplets of water condensing on a pane of glass. Well, similarly, you have this process producing the planets. Finally, chemical reactions occur and lifeforms, and then life undergoes evolution. And finally we're here and we figure it all out.
[10:05]
So that's the scientific theory, and what the up to date Māyāvādīs do is they graft this onto the Māyāvādī philosophy by identifying the most fundamental thing in the picture that you have in physics, namely this grand unified field of energy, with Brahman. So they just say, well, that's Brahman. And, so that's simple, then. And then Brahman realization is to finally recognize that the only thing real is this infinite field of energy.
And some added an additional feature to it. The idea is to bring in consciousness because actually modern science as it stands, really says nothing about consciousness, if you really come down to it. But you can sort of graft consciousness into the picture. And so this is done for example, by a physicist named John Hagelin who's connected with the TM movement. And he will say that one qualification of this infinite energy field is bliss. So it's a field of infinite bliss. And if you recognize that that's all there is, then you recognize the state of infinite bliss. So that's the present version. This is highly respectable. You'll find college professors who accept this and so forth. It's very much believable. Famous physicists like David Bohm, present this philosophy and so on and so forth. So the idea there... Also, George Wald gave an extremely eloquent presentation of this at some meetings we had, but, these are impersonal conceptions of the absolute truth.
In the traditional Judeo-Christian path, the concept of God that you really have at the core of the philosophy is basically the same sort of thing. Namely that God is some kind of impersonal force with will and knowledge, but not something really personal. So that concept is there, especially when you come to the more sophisticated ideas of the theologians.
So, what then is the difference between something personal and impersonal? Well, you'll see that the key feature presented in the Bhāgavatam is that Kṛṣṇa has bodily form. Persons ultimately have to have bodily forms, one could say. You could imagine a disembodied mind that is just sort of all pervading and just floating somehow. But, in the Vedic literature, you find that the Supreme Absolute Truth has form. So Kṛṣṇa is sat-cit-ānanda-vigraha. This form however, is not made of matter. The thing that Śaṅkarācārya did was to say, okay, Kṛṣṇa has form, but that form is material. All forms must be material. That's his dictum. So, the actual philosophy is that there is a transcendental form.
So Kṛṣṇa is nirguṇa, which means he's devoid of any material qualities. And from the Māyāvādīi point of view, that means He must be devoid of any qualities whatsoever. So of course they would say Kṛṣṇa is not nirguṇa. They would say, in fact, Kṛṣṇa is saguṇa Brahman with qualities. And nirguṇa Brahman is indescribable because it has no qualities and anything you'd describe has qualities, cause description means assigning qualities to things. So therefore, Brahman has no qualities. But actually nirguṇa, Śrīla Prabhupāda has pointed out, means no material qualities. So Kṛṣṇa has an eternal bodily form, but that is completely non-material.
[14:31]
So, if you look at the Bhāgavatam, you'll find that there are embodied forms that are personal at every level of the creation, both spiritual and material. And that is an interesting feature. Kṛṣṇa does everything through personal form. And in principle, from an abstract point of view, He wouldn't have to do this. So there's the idea of God saying: let there be! And then there was. In Genesis in the Bible, there's this idea: God said, “let there be light,” and there was light and so forth. There are various ‘let there be’s,” and then things simply spring into being by the Supreme will. So this is the concept that is sometimes presented. But it seems that Kṛṣṇa doesn't do things that way, at least as far as the Bhāgavatam is concerned.
So from Kṛṣṇa's original form, innumerable Viṣṇu forms expand, which have the same categorical level as Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu tattva. Among these, there is Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu and then Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu. In the creation of the material world, Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu manifests innumerable universal globes, and He expands himself as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu within each of those globes. And then Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu produces Brahmā. But He also does this in a personal way. Namely, it's described that a lotus comes out of his navel and opens up. And then Brahmā is there within the lotus flower, which is a little bit different from just abstractly saying, well, “let there be Brahmā,” and there was Brahmā.
So, the thing is done in a personal fashion. And then all of the different beings within the universe are created also through a process of personal generation coming from Brahmā. So Brahmā initially creates mental offspring, mānasāḥ putras, mind sons. So he, through his mind, Brahmā generates these forms. And not only through his mind, but from different parts of his body. There's a whole description in the Bhāgavatam, for example, from Brahmā's thumb Dakṣa was born and so on. So from different parts of his body, different beings become manifest. So then from these beings, well, the first category of beings would be the Prajāpatis. Prajāpati means the lords of the prajā. Prajā means all the different living beings. So they reproduce sexually. After the level of Brahmā generally the method of sexual reproduction is used. But they produce different forms, generation by generation. So, it's an interesting description.
I'm pointing all this out because it's related to the point that Kṛṣṇa is personal and everything is done personally. So the Bhāgavatam contains accounts of this information. Once you get beyond the initial creation of Brahmā, the basic principle is that everything is generated by reproduction of bodies. But, it can be looked at on an abstract and a concrete level. That is the abstract principle. Everything is done through bodily form. And then the concrete level involves the specific details. And the details exhibit a great deal of variation. And so the process becomes historical.
So you have particular personalities involved. So for example, there's the Prajāpati named Dakṣa who went through quite a history. So he was initially a direct son of Brahmā, and then he got into trouble with Lord Śiva and became cursed; and he underwent penances for two lifetimes. Śrīla Prabhupāda pointed out after that, and then again was born as Dakṣa that is in the same form that he had previously, except in this case he was the son of the Pracetas. So he wasn't directly the son of Brahmā. However, in the Cakṣuṣa Manu period, it's described that Dakṣa produced different living entities. So, in the Bhāgavatam there is a description of how that happened.
[19:55]
There are various stages in that description. But finally Dakṣa produced a number of daughters and these became the wives of different demigods and Prajāpatis. So 13 of them became wives of the prajāpati Kaśyapa who is a direct son of Brahmā. And from them it's described in the Bhāgavatam how different life forms were produced. So this is interesting. There's a list in the Bhāgavatam, and in fact, there are some genealogical charts.
But let's see, the basic point here is that different beings gave rise to different life forms. So it said, for example, Kaśyapa, who was also named Tārkṣya, had four wives: Vinatā, Kadrū, Pataṅgī and Yāminī. It's not that he only had four, but there were four in particular. “Pataṅgī gave birth to many kinds of birds and Yāminī gave birth to locusts, Vinatā [Suparṇā] gave birth to Garuḍa, the carrier of Lord Viṣṇu, and to Anūru, or Aruṇa, the chariot driver of the sun-god. Kadrū gave birth to different varieties of serpents” and so forth.
There are many different accounts like that. So that is described. More detail is given in other Purāṇas also. It may seem a little bit abrupt for Yāminī to give birth to locusts. The details are interesting though. In the Matsya Purāṇa, there's also an account of these different daughters of Dakṣa and the different offspring that they had. Let's see. In particular, there's a fair amount of information here on different birds. For example, Kaśyapa had this wife, Tāmra. It didn't mention Tāmra in this verse, but there's another verse mentioning Tāmra. But specifically, Tāmra had six daughters, it’s mentioned, known as Śukī, Śyenī, Bhāsī, Sugṛdhī, Gṛdhrika, and Śucī. These in turn had other daughters, for example, Śuka and Ulūka, but now we're getting specific bird forms. Śuka, of course, refers to a parrot and Ulūka refers to an owl. Also Śyenī… let's see… this refers to different kinds of eagles. We have here at Gṛdhra, which is a vulture, and Kapota, which is a pigeon. These are different daughters, but these would be granddaughters of Tāmra. So the point is, more details are given.
Also, it's described here, where Jaṭāyu comes in, since we just heard about Jaṭāyu in the Rāmāyaṇa. Let's see, from Vinatā, Kaśyapa begotten Garuḍa who was just mentioned here and Aruṇa. Sampāti and Jaṭāyu were the sons of Aruṇa. And then Babhru and Sighragra were the sons of Sampāti. And then Jaṭāyu it is said, was the father of Karṇikāra, Satagami, Sārasa, Rājvala and Vāruṇḍa and then it says the above mentioned sons of Jaṭāyu became the ancestors of different species of birds. So, you have a series of generations coming down. So that tells you how Jaṭāyu fits into the picture. So, in any case, the situation that you have is that, according to the Bhāgavatam, everything is directed personally at all levels of the creation of the universe.
Now, according to the impersonal philosophies, you have some ultimate absolute cause, which is impersonal. And then somehow you have people coming at some stage later on, which is a little bit difficult to comprehend as to just how that happens. In modern science, the way they deal with that is: this concept of evolution in which you say that… you start with something impersonal, you wind up with chemicals in a primordial soup, and the chemicals get it together and form a cell. Practically everyone is believing this in modern universities, even though it's incredibly hard to understand how that could work.
[25:05]
You can see that if you study cells... Actually the biochemists have provided the best arguments against this theory of origin of life from chemicals, because they find that within cells there are incredibly complicated machines. It's quite amazing. For example, the ribosome: all proteins within cells are produced by ribosomes, and ribosomes in turn are produced from proteins, particular ones plus RNA. So in order to get the ribosome, you have to have the proteins. In order to get the proteins, you have to have the ribosome plus the RNA. So how did that get started?
And then the problem is the ribosome is an incredibly complicated machine. It has an editing and proof-reading mechanism – editors will appreciate this – which edits the proteins as they're produced. So if there's error, then the thing is kicked out and destroyed by appropriate enzymes so that you have proper accuracy. And without this editing system, it would produce erroneous proteins and the cell would die almost immediately because all its proteins would have errors in them. So how did that get started just from chemicals? Well, somehow it must've happened. That is the explanation. Yes, well, I've heard that. I've heard that argument by the way. I've actually heard that. I was presenting some of these problems with the origin of life to one scientist and he said... He was a very logical scientist. He learned how to think logically and he said that, well, obviously this evolution did take place because we're here. So that proves it!
So, in any case, a general problem you have with the impersonal philosophies is that: how do you go from the impersonal whatever it is, to the persons? This is difficult. It seems to me that Śaṅkarācārya has that problem too. He has to go from this indescribable Brahman to māyā, including Kṛṣṇa. So how do you do that? Well, the only way he does it is by saying that actually that māyā doesn't exist. – it's just an illusion. But then of course, what is it that's an illusion? Because you would think an illusion requires someone who is an illusion and Brahman cannot be an illusion. And apart from māyā, Brahman is the only thing you've got. So there's a problem there. There are a lot of problems.
So the solution in the Bhāgavatam is that you start with personality. That's where it all begins, with an eternal original person. And then everything is personal from there on down. Of course, this also creates problems when it comes to modern science again, because then the Bhāgavatam is saying everything is controlled by personal power. But the scientists will say, well, it looks as though everything is happening according to impersonal laws. So how do you reconcile those two things? So, I won't say anything more about that in this class. So, that is because it is getting late. Are there any questions? Yeah.
Question: Well, I have two questions. One of them has to do with, it says in the purport that there is.. [unclear]
Answer: So yeah... The question for those in the kitchen is: if by hearing this pastime, we immediately become freed from sinful reactions, how come we're still so evidently sinful, at least in terms of what goes on in our minds. If I can infer from Badrinarayan’s question. And the ? suffering, yeah, why are we suffering like this? Well, one question is what does ? immediately mean? That's one point to make. If as a result of hearing these pastimes, we go back to Godhead at the end of this life, say hypothetically, that's pretty immediate if you consider that we've been within the material world for uncountable births. Because, I mean from the point of view of the time we've been here, that's just instantaneous, practically. So that would be one point.
[30:12]
Another point is that Śrīla Prabhupāda said in the purport that you have to actually become absorbed in these pastimes. Where did I just read that? So it's perhaps not enough to hear it, merely by having the sounds pass through the tympanic membranes of the ears. Let's see… let's see. Well, he says if one simply gives oral reception to the narration and accepts the glories of the Lord, then he is qualified. The impersonalist philosophies cannot... Philosophers cannot understand the glories of the Lord, etcetera, etcetera. These narrations are not for them, so they can hear them too.
But the situation of how you hear is important. All you have to do is accept the glories of the Lord. Now the question is: what does it require to accept them? So one can think about that. Then there's the problem if you're sinful, maybe that means you don't really accept them. And not accepting them, then how can you become free of sin by hearing the pastimes. Anyway, you had a question.
Q: [unclear]
A: Well, you're arguing that logical arguments won't do anything for non-devotees, but that depends. You see, there are non-devotees who actually in their heart have something against being a devotee. And that's true. Logical arguments won't do anything for them because they don't want to hear it. But there are people out there who are bewildered. They could be devotees, but they're not because they're still confused. Logical arguments can help them. That's what the logical arguments are really for. Helping people who are on the edge, they could become devotees or they may remain non-devotees because within their minds they're bewildered. They're confused by all this māyā. So if you can straighten things out logically and clarify things for them, then they can approach devotional service. So when you say the non-devotees need to associate with the devotees, well that's the first phase of the association really. Because if the non-devotee initially has no faith then he's not going to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And what is his association with devotees really going to amount to?
But if the devotee explains things to him logically and clearly, and then he says, oh yeah, maybe there's something to that. So maybe I'll try this chanting. And from that association of devotees, then he has a chance to become a devotee. And then when he becomes a devotee and gets a little bit purified, then he can make further progress. He can chant more purely. And that brings one back to the answer to Badrinarayan’s question. Because, initially if these things are explained logically and clearly, so you can begin to put some faith in them, then you get a little bit of that benefit. As a result, you become purified so you can put more faith in these narrations and so forth. Then you get more benefit and you become more purified and so forth. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Go right ahead.
Q: [unclear]
[34:31]
A: Oh, well, first of all, Śrīla Prabhupāda in fact gave many logical arguments. He was... definitely had a program of giving logical arguments to the people in general. I remember at the end of the first New York Ratha-yātrā, we'd gone all the way down Fifth Avenue with the Ratha-yātrā carts and Śrīla Prabhupāda gave the lecture. The entire lecture was the argument from design. That's all he talked about, pointing out how the sun, you know, is providing just enough heat for the earth to function. You know, if it was too hot, we'd burn up. If it was too cold, we'd freeze. So everything is adjusted just right. The rain is adjusted so that, you know, the crops can grow and so forth. You could have torrential floods or droughts, but everything is adjusted. Our lives totally depend on these things. So he was going on and on, giving all these arguments saying there must be a designer, how could this just be happening? So these were logical arguments. So, Srila Prabupada would do that.
Now the point is to the... regarding the Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Prabhupāda pointed out that indeed we see life coming from life. So he was saying it's logical then to say that as you go back, it must be a similar process all the way back to an original life. That makes sense, he was saying. Whereas we've never seen life come from non-life, nor can we even understand how that could work. So this just elaborates that. You can elaborate it in two ways. You can say one, the Bhāgavatam is explaining how you go all the way back to an original source of life. But that involves these demigods and so forth.
One question is, well, how in the world you get all these birds, and fish, and and cows, and so forth, starting from Kṛṣṇa. There are some steps in there that seem a little bit puzzling how you get the animal forms. It's actually explained in the Bhāgavatam, and that's why I was mentioning these descriptions.
There's descent through different forms, and it's quite gradual and very detailed if you really get into it. So that's just filling in the gaps there. Now maybe we don't see all of that, but logically you can infer if it goes generation by generation and you keep going back, you've got to go generation by generation until there's an original state of life and then that's gone. That would be the original life, logically speaking. Even… what's his name? Thomas Aquinas argued like that with his original cause arguments and so forth.
Q: [unclear]
A: Well, He created them, but this is how He created them. Everything involves bodily form at every stage. He could have just created Brahmā, like I mentioned, but He didn't. He produced Brahmā from the lotus flower and so forth. So, well... All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.