"Explaining the Nature of Reality" (SB 1.18.17)

TRANSCRIPT:  Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 1, Chapter 18, Text 17. “Explaining the Nature of Reality.” Potomac – September 24, 1991 / (702)

[Text 17]:

Thus please narrate to us the narrations of the Unlimited, for they are purifying and supreme. They were spoken to Mahārāja Parīkṣit, and they are very dear to the pure devotees, being full of bhakti-yoga.  

Please repeat: [audience repeats]   

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda:  

What was spoken to Mahārāja Parīkṣit and what is very dear to the pure devotees is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is mainly full of the narrations of the activities of the Supreme Unlimited, and therefore it is the science of bhakti-yoga, or the devotional service of the Lord. Thus it is para, or supreme, because although it is enriched with all knowledge and religion, it is specifically enriched with the devotional service of the Lord.

 [chanting]  

om 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

So, the translation, again:  

Thus please narrate to us the narrations of the Unlimited, for they are purifying and supreme. They were spoken to Mahārāja Parīkṣit, and they are very dear to the pure devotees, being full of bhakti-yoga.  

(What time is it? Okay). So, continuing with what we were saying yesterday, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is presenting the relationship between the Supreme Absolute Truth and the world of our experience. And the aim of doing that is to enable us to understand the absolute truth. So, the way this works then is that the explanations which relate to the world as we experience it have to be properly understood in connection under the Supreme Absolute Truth.  If that is done, then one will understand Kṛṣṇa in the proper fashion. So, there are the first nine cantos of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which are primarily oriented towards explaining this relationship. So there are different energies of the Lord. There’s the material energy and also the marginal energy, the jīva, and there’s the spiritual energy which manifests the spiritual world. So, all of these things are related, and the first nine cantos of the Bhāgavatam mainly explain this. 

So what we were discussing yesterday was that, certainly in modern society, there’s a competing explanation for the nature of reality, and people are educated according to that explanation. So, as a result, they find it difficult to appreciate the explanations of reality given in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, those explanations define the relationship between the Supreme Absolute Truth and the world of our experience. But, because the descriptions in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam don’t seem to correspond too closely to the world of our experience, given the modern outlook on the world, the result is that people don’t find it so easy to understand the Śrīmad… the absolute truth… to a presentation of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, the idea then is to point out that actually, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is describing the world in a realistic way. And in fact, this can be done systematically. So, when Śrīla Prabhupādaa was saying that we should show that life comes from life, not matter, for example – that’s one phrase that he used – the aim there was to show that a certain very fundamental theme of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is, in fact, a description of reality, that it’s not some sort of mythology or religious belief that is being propounded.

[5:24] 

So that, in fact, can be done in many different ways. It has both positive and negative aspects – to show that life comes from life, not matter. So the negative aspect there is to show that life is not just material. So why would one want to do that? Who’s saying that it’s material, anyway? So there’s the scientific theory of evolution, which first of all says that life is just a combination of atoms. So, life is simply a matter of patterns in matter. That’s the first point the scientists would make. And, secondly, that these patterns of matter come about by a physical process. So, the negative aspect is to show that that’s not correct. But then, on the positive side, there’s this life-comes-from-life idea. What that’s really saying is not just the obvious thing, that different organisms produce offspring, but the real point is that life as we know it is coming from spiritual life; that life, originally, in its nature is spiritual and material so-called life is a byproduct of the original spiritual life. So, the aim is to show that or explain how that works. So, that’s just one example.  

So, I was asked to talk about this planetarium and museum idea which we had been discussing. So, this is … this idea is intended to accomplish a number of things. One main purpose of it is to provide an impetus for really putting together our presentation on these topics involving the relationship between the world as people understand it today and the world as described in the Bhāgavatam. So, there are many different things to present. Now, in the area of science, there are standard ways of presenting knowledge to the people. One method is through technical expositions of subject matter in university courses and textbooks and so forth, but this is only for people who are already committed to studying science. So for the mass of people, what the scientists have set up are different kinds of museums and so forth, to which people are attracted. This is especially true of young people. So, they set up these museums with different kinds of exhibits and so forth in order to explain scientific ideas. So these institutions are centers of scientific propaganda. 

I can mention a little bit about the history of this. About the turn of the century in this country, there was not much support for science because, in fact, the country was dominated by fundamentalist Christians. So, in particular, you couldn’t get any money from Congress for science in those days in this country. So, there were some scientific people who wanted to promote the theory of evolution and get everyone to believe it. So there was no hope in getting money for that from any state legislature or from Congress. So where would they get the money? So, some evolutionists were able to convince certain big industrialists – Carnegies and Rockefellers and so forth – to provide money for museums. So, in fact, this was done. One of the first ones was the big museum in New York City, the Museum of Natural History, there. So, in those days, quite a number of dinosaur bones had been discovered out west. So, they built these large buildings and set up the bones in exhibits and presented this as proof that life has evolved from matter. 

[10:26]

Of course, in one sense, the whole thing is a non sequitur because, just because you have some bones set up, why does that prove that life evolved from matter? Actually, it doesn’t. All it proves is that there were some animals who had those bones in their skeletons at some time. It certainly doesn’t prove that there was a period in the history of the earth in which you only had a certain kind of animal with skeletons of that structure and that, later on, different kinds of animals appeared and so forth. But, anyway, the presentation is put together to give that impression, and the idea is, basically, sensory overload. You guide the people through this set of exhibits and displays and they see all of these different skeletons and so forth, and they think: Ah, evolution, it must be true. It couldn’t be questioned. There’s no way you could challenge this because these people have so much information. So, therefore, they accept it, and they begin to modify their whole view of reality on that basis. 

Well, we can also do that with our own material. It’s also a fact that there’s a vast amount of evidence that can be brought forth of certain basic points in the worldview of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and that’s also necessary. One comment that you’ll often find if you make any critique, say, of the theory of evolution is that: Well, you may find this little defect in the theory or that little defect. But how can you challenge this theory because there’s overwhelming evidence in support of it? So, what good are your puny objections? So, the only reply to that that would be adequate is, one has to give overwhelming evidence in favor of our point of view. That also can be done. And, of course, you can’t do that in one day – just like the building of Rome or whatever. It has to be set up gradually. Of course, the scientists didn’t put up their whole presentation in a day either. They’ve been at it for about 300 years  And at this point, they have control of the total educational system. They have huge amounts of funding coming from the government and so forth, so they’re moving ahead at a very high level at this point. But, the scientists themselves didn’t start out that way. 

Actually, science started with a few people who came up with this mechanistic way of looking at the world back in about, well, the early 1600s is when this really got started, with Galileo and people like that. Initially, the scientists were supported by a few wealthy people. They did not have control of the universities. There were universities in those days, but the universities were completely dominated by different Christian churches in different countries; namely, the Catholic church, and in England it would be the Anglican church, and so forth. So, the scientists, initially, were completely outside of the main social institutions of that time period, but gradually they put things together until they were able to completely take over.  

So, in this country, as I was saying, one of the main things they did was build these museums. The museum is only partially intended as a big building in which people come and look at some exhibits – that’s only part of what the museum is. On a more important level, it’s a center for spreading propaganda. It’s a place where people can gather together and work in a unified way towards promoting a certain point of view. These museums also send out expeditions. For example, they would send out expeditions to dig up more dinosaur bones and so forth. And they have scholars there who write books and come up with all kinds of new material, which they then present and so on and so forth  So, an important aspect of such a prospect is to have a research division. We also need that. 

[15:29] 

There are a couple of main objectives that we would like to pursue in terms of what we want to present to the people, which… and Śrīla Prabhupāda has indicated what these are. One of them is this basic topic of showing them that life comes from life, not matter. Śrīla Prabhupāda stressed that very strongly. That’s essential to the basic message of the Bhāgavatam. The other has to do with astronomy. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted us to present the description of the universe given in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as being, actually, reality. So, this may seem to be a very daunting task, but, actually, there are many different things that can be done there also. As far as the subject of life and matter is concerned, on the negative side, you can say many things about the theory of evolution. For example, we have one book that we are putting together right now – it should be out shortly, which is what I’ve been saying for a long time – showing defects in the archeological evidence for human evolution. Now this is just one small subject area, but it’s an important one. The scientists have worked out a whole explanation of how human beings evolved from apes. So there’s the australopithecus, the ape man, and then homohabilis, homoerectus, neanderthal man, and so forth. They have the whole thing worked out with dates and so on. So, we investigated that, and we have found that, actually, there are all kinds of difficulties with the evidence that they present. So, that’s one whole area on the negative side.  

On the positive side, what we want to argue, of course, is that living beings have descended… living beings on the gross material platform have descended from living beings on the subtle platform, and they, in turn, descended from spiritual beings. So, there’s all kinds of evidence that can be brought to bear there also. For example, just to show the existence of the soul, there’s evidence indicating that sometimes people remember past lives. This can be extensively documented. In fact, quite a number of people have made studies on this which corroborate one another, which is an important point, for example, a person named Ian Stevenson, who’s made many studies showing that people remember past lives. 

Just to mention an interesting point, one thing he observed is that, in maybe 60% to 80% of the cases of people who remembered their past lives, they ended their previous life in a violent way; that is, they met a violent death. So, there seems to be some correlation there between dying violently and then remembering your previous life in the next life. So in many of these violent deaths, there was some wound inflicted by a weapon, such as a gunshot wound or something like that.  So he has… he said he has 42 cases which are thoroughly documented in terms of medical records and so forth that people tend to have birthmarks in the place where the fatal wound was that killed them in the previous life. So, and, as I say, he was able to check medical records to find where the wound was, and then you can check the birthmark, and so on. And, so he’s making the point: Well, how would you explain that? Is it just a coincidence? And, so, that’s an interesting example of some evidence. And he’s done a large amount of work in this area. So, that’s just one thing. One could go on listing lots of different things that can be presented. So, that’s in this area of showing the nature of the soul, showing that life is actually… has an, at least, a subtle platform, if not spiritual platform of existence, showing the defects in evolution theory. As far as astronomy is concerned, there are all kinds of things to present.  

[20:37] 

So, on the negative side there, just to give one example, in modern cosmology there’s all kinds of evidence indicating that the Big Bang theory is not actually correct. There are dissident astronomers who have bitter stories of being kicked out of their professional positions because they dared to talk about evidence that goes against the Big Bang theory. One example would be…  there’s a man named Halton Arp, who used to do observations at the Mt. Palomar Telescope in California. And he kept observing things that contradict the accepted theory. I don’t think I’d better go into why. But so, he began to find that he’d go into a room, and somebody would be talking to somebody, and then suddenly it would become silent. And then, as he walked out of the room, the conversations would resume again. And little things like this, and it would get more and more difficult to continue. And somehow telescope time wasn’t available for him. And somehow his papers weren’t being accepted for publication. He’d send in a paper to a journal, and somehow it wouldn’t get back to him with the referees’ comments. And eventually he was forced out, and he left the country. So, he had an interview in Omni, in which he was bewailing this situation. And so these things are going on. And so, anyway, all kinds of things can be presented. That’s also on the negative side. On the positive side, there is… there are many different things to do to show how the universe is set up as described in the Bhāgavatam.  That book that I wrote, Vedic Astronomy and Cosmography, outlines a few points that can be made there.  

So, let’s see, it’s about 8:30 now? So, maybe I’d better stop here. I think that’s where we’re supposed to stop anyway. See if there are any questions or comments?  Yeah?

Question:  [unclear]

Answer:  Well, I understand that that’s what they say – that they put laser reflectors on the moon.  

Q:  [unclear]

A:  I haven’t personally investigated that. So, all I know is that that’s what they say – that when the astronauts went to the moon, they put laser reflectors there. You could… now that is something that could be investigated. This is private detective work. You can go and meet the people, and you can say: Okay, well, who is actually reflecting the beam off of the moon? And then you can go to their place of work and say: Okay, let’s see your equipment. And, are you really getting reflections from the moon or not? It’s something you could find out. And if you found out that somehow it was top secret, then you could wonder whether it was really true or not. I’ve never investigated that, so I don’t actually know, although you can look into those kinds of things. It’s something you could investigate. Yeah?

Q:  [unclear]

[25:53]

A:  Well, we’ll want to deal with that aspect because, in one sense, we have to, because, you see, we are presenting religion. There’s no way around it. If we try and tell people we’re not presenting religion, they’re still going to point out that we are anyway. So you can’t avoid it. So, the problem when you present religion is, the people will say: Well, there are so many religions.  What’s special about yours? Why should we believe in your religion, your particular belief system? So, therefore, we have to say something about the comparative value of different systems of religion. Now, the things you’re referring to, Elizabeth Clair Prophet and so forth, that’s also in the field of religion. Any discussion of mystics who have experiences of traveling somewhere or meeting some divine being or whatever it may be, that is something which people could say is really in the same category of what we’re involved with. Because we’ll say: Well, Śrīla Prabhupāda was a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa. We’ll say that Lord Caitanya was Kṛṣṇa Himself, and He came to this earth, and He was walking around and doing all kinds of things.  So, someone could say: Well, what’s the difference between that and meeting the ascended masters and so many different things? So… or there was Joseph Smith. An angel came down and told him: Well, these golden tablets are there, and they have the description of Jesus Christ and his trips to the United States before it was the United States. So, we have to deal with these things. Of course, we can ignore them, but people will bring these things up anyway. So, in fact… yeah?

Q:  [unclear]

A:   Well, there are some basic things we can say right away that clears away a great deal of material. The first thing to do is consider the three modes of nature. So, some beings are tamasic. You know, the Bhagavad-gītā describes religion according to three modes. So, perhaps 99% of all this material is in the tamo-guṇa, and can be shown to be so based on the symptoms. So, one thing you can do right away is say that well, it looks like there’s evidence here for some real entities, and that’s good for us because we say that life is not just material. So, evidence indicating that some subtle entities are communicating with people helps back up our point, because one thing we say is that such entities do exist, whether they are ghosts or – there are also ghostly living species, Bhūtas, Pretas, Piśācas, and so forth. Those are species; that is, you can be born into their group. So, there are religions devoted to worshiping these kinds of beings, and they are characterized by their symptoms – tamasic symptoms.  

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Well, there are some more mode of goodness-type manifestations, and you can analyze them also. Just recently, for example, I was looking at this… these manifestations that occurred at Fatima, in Portugal. So, there, the story is that The Virgin Mary appeared before three children, six months in a row, and gave them all kinds of messages and so forth. And she announced early on in that series of sessions that there would be a miracle that everyone would be able to see on October the 13th. This was 1917. So, sure enough, on October the 13th, about 70,000 people, it is estimated, gathered in this little area in Fatima. It was raining; they were up to their knees in mud; it was quite a scene. And this incredible spectacle appeared in the sky. It looked as though the sun fell out of the sky and went on a zig zag, while at the same time shooting out colored beams of light in all directions. And thousands and thousands of people saw it. Not only that, but it was seen by people in nearby communities that hadn’t actually gone to the main location. It’s estimated it was seen over about a 600-mile square area. 

[30:57]

So, it’s interesting to examine the kinds of communications that were being given to the children there. It was pretty much in the mode of goodness. We would approve of practically everything that was said. The thing that struck me as interesting was the way in which God entered the picture – because this was supposedly The Virgin Mary, or somebody like that, if not her, specifically. There is some reference to Jesus Christ, who is up there in heaven somewhere.  As far as God is concerned, this woman – The Virgin Mary, perhaps – opened her hands up over the children, and beams of light streamed out of her hands. And they felt the presence of God in this light and went into a state of ecstasy, in the light. So, does that remind anyone of anything?  Like, maybe, brahmajyoti. That’s the actual way in which God appeared in that whole series of events – on the level of Brahman. Interesting observation. That’s how I would insert that into our whole philosophical picture. Here you have pretty good evidence that some kind of effulgently glowing being was appearing before some people and communicating some pretty positive messages. And, in terms of saying that they should pray to God and so forth, it was the kind of thing we would approve of. But the way God appeared there was as Brahman. So, it fits in. So, anyway.  Yeah?

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yes, well, in this case, it remained on the same platform for… up until about 1980, where this one woman died, who is one of those children. There were three children: Two of them died right after that in the great flu epidemic that occurred after World War I. I think it occurred in 1918.  So, two of the children died. The other one became a nun and lived up until quite recently. And, as far as one can see, she was very sincere her whole life, so it seemed that the whole thing was pretty much mode of goodness, in that case.  

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yes, in terms of the long-term results of those two particular events, that seemed to be pretty much motivated by the mode of goodness. It’s a fact, though, that there are cases where the apparent mode of goodness appears to be a ploy to suck you into something tamasic.  

Q:  [unclear]

A:  So, those things are there. And, of course, this ghost and spirit worship is very common. Most channeling is precisely that. What was it – there’s this woman, Ruth Montgomery, who has written all kinds of books. She has guides with a capital G. Well, she also had a human person who was helping her. At a certain point, he died, and guess what. He became one of the guides after that time. So, what does that mean?  It means the guides were ghosts [giggles].  

Q:  [unclear]

[35:01]

A:  Right!  So, these things are going on. But this is all well and good for us because, after all, we say that there are such things as ghosts, because the subtle body is there. Scientists would say there’s no such thing, so this is evidence that backs up our position. So, it’s good from our point of view. Yes?

Q:  [unclear]

A:  In the 5th Canto, Śrīla Prabhupāda said they went to Rahu. However, he has said various things. My understanding is that he said they may have gone to Rahu. It’s just one option. What they didn’t do was land on the… in the Kingdom of Candra, on the moon planet, because that’s an opulent land on which there are rivers – specifically, rivers of nectar. I heard that on a tape once. In fact, the first day that I was in a temple – a Hare Kṛṣṇa Temple – I was hearing this tape of Śrīla Prabhupāda, which I could hardly understand. And… but I did hear him distinctly say that there are rivers of nectar on the moon. If this is not true, then all the śāstra is wrong [group laughter]. And when I heard that, I went: Hmm, this is what it all comes down to, isn’t it. [group laughter]

Q:  [unclear]  

A:  Yes.

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  Well, that’s well and good, except that not all of the beings who channel through people are on a higher level.

Q:  Right.

A:  We agree in the sense that we say: Yes, there are beings on a higher level. They do try to help us. Śrīla Prabhupāda said that the beings in Satyaloka don’t feel any kind of physical pain or illness, but they feel pain out of compassion for the suffering souls in Martyaloka, which is where we are. But, it’s not necessarily the case that, just because someone is channeling a particular being, that that is a being on a higher platform. It may not necessarily be so. So that has to be considered.

Q:  Well, another point about channeling is that, granted, there are at least different beings on different levels, and they might possess the ability to communicate by using the body of an earthly being, but if you take their advice, you can only go as far as their consciousness is developed. That might be a bit more than an ordinary, mundane platform that we experience here as, like, a materialist person is experiencing. But we also say that pure devotees have their channels, as well, but they’re directly in touch with Kṛṣṇa, who is the highest level of being. So, that’s the same thing. When Prabhupāda was speaking, and it was directly Kṛṣṇa speaking.  And that’s our philosophy, and Prabhupāda has said that many times. So, it depends on who you want to have as your guide.  

A:  Yes, you have to be discriminating…

Comment:  …information is always coming down from a higher consciousness, but what level do you want to take your information from? [unclear] where you end up. So, if you worship the demigods, you go to the planets of the demigods. If you worship Kṛṣṇa – or Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotees – then you’ll go back to Kṛṣṇa’s planet.

Q:  [unclear]

Comment:  But the point is this: If you have a better guide, then why go to a lesser guide? If you already have a pure devotee, like Śrīla Prabhupāda, then why would you bother with anybody else? Because everything that they can say has already been said by him, but more. Prabhupāda said that that’s the position of the spiritual master – that he’s a transparent via media.

A:  I should point out another thing that can happen, too. Many of these higher beings may, in fact, be higher, but if you examine what their philosophy is, you will find that they are impersonalists. Very generally you will find that that is the case – practically in every case, they are impersonalists. Yeah?

[40:26]

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Well, you have to consider, if you’re going to engage in empirical studies, you have to consider what you can soundly deduce from a particular set of data. I would propose that you may be able to deduce that a given kind of being may indeed exist, but it’s very difficult to conclusively deduce that that being is telling you the real truth. Channeling is like picking up a telephone and hearing somebody talking at the other end. That tells you that there’s somebody there who’s talking, but how do you know if he’s honest? That’s another question! That’s difficult.  It’s easy to figure out that he’s there, but to know for sure that he’s honest? And even if he’s honest, how do you know that he’s not in illusion? He could be in illusion too.  

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Theosophists?  

Q:  Apparently, they get a lot of information from the Vedas.

A:  Yes, a lot of people get information from the Vedas.  

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yep, there are so many different topics. Just to make a long story short, and then we should just stop: There are certain points you can gather from all of this, which are good from our point of view, and you don’t have to go further. There are other things where you get into areas where it’s very hard to decide what’s really true and what isn’t. So the thing to do is just take the solid points you can make, which really comes down to arguing that there are subtle beings, which is a basic point we make, as opposed to the scientific position. And trying to go further and figure out just which subtle being is on which platform, and which one can be relied on, and so forth – that’s a very difficult task. One doesn’t have to worry about all of that. That would be the basic thing I would suggest.  

All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.