PRINCETON BHAKTI VEDANTA INSTITUTE

REPORT - NOVEMBER 5, 2016

As we continued our celebration of (- the holiest month in the Vaishnava

lunar calendar), we also celebrate[1] For the month of we offer lamps

( ) to Lord Damodar (childhood form of SriKrishna), while chanting the

[2] Sripad Bhakti MadhavaPuri Maharaja, Ph.D. (Sripad Puri Maharaja) ex-plained to his special guest, Dr. Audrey Kitagawa,who served as advisor to religious and other hu-manitarian organizations of the United Nations(UN) and is a member of several international or-ganizations. She recently returned from an inter-national conference on science and religion inChennai, India, which included our Sripad BhaktiVijnana Muni Maharaja, Ph.D. and Sripad BhaktiNiskam Shanta Maharaja, Ph.D.

is the month of Damodar when we medi-tate on the pastimes of Krishna with His MotherYasoda” Sripad Puri Maharaja explained. “Weoffer lamps ( ) which are a symbol of ser-vice in this special month which is very dear tothe Lord and brings many blessings to the devo-tees who participate in these expressions of devo-tion. We also offer a daily prayer, Sri

which glorifies the pastimes ofthe Lord during this month.”Sripad Puri Maharaja with kartals opened ourweekly by chanting

‘

  This prayer describes the earlychildhood pastime of the Supreme Personality ofGodhead Sri Krishna, running from His Mother,Yasoda when she tried to punish Him for steal-ing butter from the , the cowherd womenof Vrindavan. During this special month of

, devotees around the world chant these eightverses daily. Each verse describes various excep-tional qualities and features of Sri Krishna’schildhood pastimes.  The English translationswere then read by each of the devotees in turn.

Bridging the connection between science andreligion, Sripad Puri Maharaja said, “SripadShanta Maharaja has put together a list ofabout 40,000 scientists in the field of conscious-ness studies and other areas, contributing toseveral on-going conversations on the interneton the topic of consciousness. One of the maincategories missing in scientific discussions is

Bhakti Vedanta Instituteof Spiritual Culture and Science

20 Nassau St., Ste. 116Princeton, NJ 08542Phone 732-604-4135Website: bviscs.org

Unity of Science and Religion: Discussion with Dr. Kitagawa

SRI SRI GURU GAURANGAU JAYATAH

what G. W. F. Hegel (German philosopher)around the 1800’s called ‘being for self.’ Hegelsaid ‘being for self’ is the logical category ofbeing underlying consciousness. There’s ‘being’and as well as ‘being for self,’” Sripad Puri Ma-haraja said. “Knowledge involves: (1) the ob-ject known, (2) knowledge of the object, (3) theknower.”“The known object has its own being by itself,while the being of the object for consciousnessis called knowledge of the object. What the ob-ject is for consciousness, we call knowledgeand that which knowledge is for the knower.The self ( ) is thus connected with theobject through his knowledge of it,” SripadPuri Maharaja continued. “The study of theknown is called ontology. The study of knowl-edge is called epistemology and the study ofthe knower is called theology. All three ofthese are interconnected but science only dealswith the known. Science does not generallyrecognize that knowledge is involved in whatis known. The known is what we have someknowledge about but science neglects the roleof the scientist’s knowledge - the being for con-sciousness of the object. The relation of thesethree aspects is something the philosophershave been discussing in recent times sinceKant (Immanuel Kant, a German philosopherwho is considered a central figure of modernphilosophy). The contribution of the subject,the knower, is essential to understanding theunity of the object properly. It is not that theobject can be understood on its own. There’s avital contribution from the subject in deter-mining what the object is. A result of the fail-ure to study his philosophical arguments inthis regard has led to much confusion in thedevelopment of quantum theory concerningthe role of consciousness.”“The other consideration of ‘being-for’ that isneglected by modern science is the purpose, orthat-for-the-sake-of-which an object exists.This is interpreted as final cause in Aristotle’sphilosophy. However Aristotle’s original term

refers more to explanation than cause. Toexplain a thing properly requires knowingthat-for-the-sake-of-which it exists. The fa-mous example he gave is of a hand. Withoutknowing the relation of the hand to the humanbody we cannot properly describe it as merelya five limbed object.”

“Why do you think this neglect has taken place?”Dr. Kitagawa asked. “It’s a long story but we cansay it begins with a philosopher-scientist namedFrancis Bacon, who is considered the father ofscientific empiricism. He proposed that scienceshould be concerned with two of the four factorsthat were given originally by Aristotle for proper-ly explaining things,” Sripad Puri Maharaja re-plied. “Aristotle enumerated four aspects of everycause – the material, efficient, formal and the fi-nal cause. For example, the material cause maybe a lump of clay, the efficient cause is the pot-ter’s hands molding the clay, the formal cause isthe design or plan by which the potter directs hisactions and the final cause is the adequacy of thefinished product to its idea. Bacon consideredonly two things that science has to be concernedwith: the material and the efficient cause, noth-ing else. The material we are working with andwhat causes that material to change. He left outof consideration the formal and final causes. Thusmodern science has inherited that type of expla-nation in terms of material and efficient causa-tion.”“What is the defect when you do something likethat?” Sripad Puri Maharaja asked then respond-ed, “The best way to understand this is with theanalogy of the blind men and the elephant. Therewere several blind men and an elephant. Theycould not see and did not know there was an ele-phant before them. One touched the leg and said‘oh, this is like a tree stump,’ another touched thetail and said ‘oh, this is a rope,’ the third touchedthe trunk and said, ‘this is like a snake,’ and an-other touched the ear and said ‘this is like a fan.’Because they did not know the whole their knowl-edge of the parts was incomplete and consequent-ly improperly understood. Without understand-ing its purpose or relation with the whole a leg ofan elephant could be misconceived as a treestump,” Sripad Puri Maharaja said. “Withoutknowledge of that-for-the-sake-of-which a thingexists, it can take on a completely different signif-icance altogether. So by studying the differentfinite aspects of the world without understandingtheir overall purpose, we cannot properly under-stand anything. We don’t have the full informa-tion we need to properly explain things. So, this‘being for’ or understanding the purpose of life,has become something many people no longer askanymore. They think that the purpose of life issimply to enjoy the senses.

Everything is finished at the time of death.That’s it!” Sripad Puri Maharaja said. “Andthat whole mode of thinking can trace its originin modern science.”

“Modernity refers to the age of reason or en-lightenment philosophy, which was first clearlyformulated by Rene Descartes (1596-1650).Here we first find consciousness ( )or subjectivity being distinguished from matter( ) or objectivity. This gave rise tothe concept of the duality of the subject and ob-ject,” Sripad Puri Maharaja continued thenasked what cognition is? What does ‘knowing’mean? He then responded, “Raising what is ex-ternally objective into our own subjectivity.What we understand as subjective is an inter-nal image (picture) or representation of what isoutwardly present in the world. In philosophythis subjective representation of phenomena iscalled perception. A perception is somethinglike a pre-conception, or something that comesbefore forming a proper conception or compre-hension of an object. Thus we can distinguishthree stages present in consciousness: (sensu-ous) apprehension, perception, and comprehen-sion.”“Each form (stage, level, Gestalt) of conscious-ness can thus be distinguished from the othersby means of its particular function. The firstlevel of consciousness is the senses or sensuous-ness, also called sentience. Specifically thatwhich can feel or experience is sentient. Toclaim that the Absolute is sentient being orsentient substance is to recognize its ability tofeel and experience. This completely revolution-izes the presupposition of modern science thatreality is ultimately impersonal, insentient sub-stance or matter. The materialized conceptionof the universe finds it impossible to explainhow sentience or life came from insentient mat-

ter. If life or sentience is primordial, however, thehard problem that materialism faces is immedi-ately resolved. This idea correlates with our natu-ral experience that life always comes fromprevious life. How the material concept of a rock isformed, for instance, seems much more reasonablethan how a rock could form a concept of itself us-ing a scientist for its own service. George Waldand Niels Bohr actually realized this same prepos-terous conclusion about physicists.”“So the immediate apprehension of an object bythe senses may be considered a first level of con-sciousness found even in lower forms of life suchas microbes, plants and insects who may not havethe developed senses of a man or animal but none-theless do exhibit behavior indicative of sentienceor feeling.”“The next level of consciousness is the perceptionor the pre-conceptual formation of internal repre-sentations, images, or pictures. These may also beconsidered as immediate intuitions of the internalsense, but because representations are reflectedmirror images of external objects they are consid-ered the mediating means between apprehension(the first level of consciousness) and comprehen-sion *the third level of consciousness) or the con-cept of the representation that is formed bythought. It is within the hierarchy of these threeinitial levels that we can recognize the beginningof what is called the subjective evolution of con-sciousness. ”“Kant took this simplified and naïve schema of thestages of cognition and subjected it to his methodof internal critique – thinking about, analyzingand systematizing the internal processes of themind. He recognized that there are certain inher-ent categories of the mind that are applied to theobjects that are intuited by the senses. In otherwords, the objects of the senses do not just reflectthemselves in the mind like an internal mirrorand then we form concepts of them. Rather themind has to apply certain judgements to the ob-jects that the senses apprehend in order to deter-mine them as unities, differences, relations, andso on. The senses understood as mere passive sen-sors or receivers do not determine, for example,something as simple as object A is ‘next to” objectB. In other words, none of the passive senses havethe capacity to determine ‘next to.’ This is an actof comparison or judgement about what the senses

apprehend in a direct, intuitive, simple, imme-diate or unmediated way. This means that themind contributes in a very important way towhat the senses apprehend. The naive realists(people in general including most scientists)have no idea of this involvement of mind intheir perception of the world.”“Kant enumerated twelve categories of judg-ment that where actually first given by theamazing intellect of Aristotle about two thou-sand years before him. These are all necessaryin explaining our cognition or knowledge of thevarieties of phenomenal experience, mathemat-ics, science, and so on. In order to understandthis more clearly, I like to give the example ofrobotics, in which a robot is equipped with aphotoelectric tube as a sensor – analogous tothe eyes that see things. When the sensor de-tects a photon bouncing off an object the photo-electric cell generates an electric current. Inorder for the robot to respond to that current ithas to be passed to a computer that is pro-grammed to send an electrical signal to a servo-motor that can move the robot away from ortowards the object. In the same way our sensessend signals to the brain but the mind has todetermine how to interpret those signals as tothe nature of the object and one’s behavior to-ward it.”“Modern science has pretty much ignored allthis internal processing in its study of the ob-jects of the world. Despite its successes this isclearly a mistake that neglects the wealth ofknowledge within us. The ancientphilosophy of India recognized the importanceof the internal or subtle processes of cognitionin explaining the phenomenal world,” SripadPuri Maharaja continued. Besides the(senses) there’s the (mind), the(intellect) and the (ego, or unity of ap-perception as Kant called it).There is also the

(memory) which is very important. Theseare part of the subtle reality that is absolutelyessential if we want to properly explain ourknowledge of things .“From a particular subjective perspective thetotality of experiences in life/consciousness areintegrated by a unity called ego. This, however,

is considered false ego because it fails to accountfor its integrity with the universal whole of realitythat informs its particularity. In other words, theego does not only include its being for itself, it isalso that which has being for that which is otherthan itself. By dividing itself as ego from the non-ego or world, as self and not-self, it creates a sub-jective duality that does not exist from the per-spective of the whole as an organic unity. Thus itis called false ego, although the being for self ofthe particular does exist as the moment of particu-larity of the universal whole.”“There is another way to understand this from theanalogy of the elephant and blind men. The mis-conception of the leg of an elephant as a treestump arises from the failure to understand theparticular object of immediate experience in rela-tion to the whole. Thus the false conclusion that itis a tree stump is due to the failure of accountingfor its being-for that which is other than itself – inother words ‘that-for-the-sake-of-which’ it exists,i.e. its final purpose or end. Such truncated or fi-nite understanding of objects as isolated on theirown must lead to this kind of false knowledge.”“Until we understand what we are for, what thepurpose of life is then the “I,” the self, the ego, ismisconceived as an isolated self, an individualizedform centered upon itself. It is called false ego be-cause it is understood only in its being for itselfand not in its context as being for other, in its re-lationship to the Organic Whole, God, Spirit, theAbsolute, the ultimate truth, in terms of which itbecomes a real knowledge of self. Our real identityis as part of the Whole. We are part of somethinggreater than ourselves beyond our localized exis-tence. Real education is meant to teach this.”

“When we say ‘we’ I immediately take myselfand expand it to become a part of somethingwider than myself. 'I' and ‘we' are not the samething but I am part of the 'we' and the 'we'makes up the content of 'I.' I am included therewhen I say “we.” I don’t feel that it is somethingtotally different from me when I say ‘we,'" Sri-pad Puri Maharaja continued. “When Jesusgave the Lord’s prayer, He began with ‘ Fa-ther. ‘not ‘ Father.’ The

begins with ‘ the people.’ It is veryimportant to understand the distinction andrelationship between the universal ‘We’ and theparticular ‘I.’ There’s a numerical difference yetan identity at the same time. In set theory itwould be like the difference between a memberof a set and the set itself. At the same time fromthe vantage point of Life, ‘We’ includes only hu-man beings, but there are also animals, plantsand even the Earth itself that are an essentialand inseparable part of Life. They are all truthsof that reality we are participants in. The high-est conception of that totality is what we callGod or for the Vaishnava’s, Krishna. God is notnameless or impersonal. He has millions ofnames. Something so great and inclusive - whyshould we restrict God? The infinite is all inclu-sive with many Names and innumerable quali-ties.”

is the yoga of the heart - the yogaof devotion,” Sripad Puri Maharaja said afterreferencing the forth verse of

where the nine processes of (de-votion/ dedication) are mentioned. Sripad PuriMaharaja explained, “The boon that they offeris de-centering the self.” They are sravanam(hearing about the Lord) (speakingabout or chanting the Lord’s name),

(remembering Vishnu/Krishna),

(humble service at the feet ofthe Lord and His servitors), (wor-shipping the divine form of the Lord),

(praying), (becoming theservant), (becoming Krishna’sfriend), (surrendering one-self entirely to Krishna). “These are the pro-cesses for ‘de-centering’ the self or dissolvingthe self-subsistent ego. But above that is ac-tually seeing Krishna - Reality the Beautifulwhich is the result of achieving pure love –love for the sake of love.”During the conversation that ensued, guestZhana said, “There’s a program called ‘BrainDrain’ on TV. In this program it tells you to‘not believe what you see because what yousee in many cases is not the reality.’ The eyesread the incorrect sentence on the TV screencorrectly because the brain interprets it in adifferent way from what the eyes see.” “That’s right. These things are well knownbut modern science gives no credit to the rolethe mind or belief in our experiences,” SripadPuri Maharaja said. “In the ,Krishna says that the “senses are imperfectand whatever you try to get with the senses,that also can be imperfect, so this is the prob-lem with science,” Rasaraja das Prabhu in-serted. “We trust in the senses for what webelieve but factually we can experience thedifference between what we see and what webelieve. They say ‘seeing is believing’ but it ismore true that ‘believing is seeing.’” SripadPuri Maharaja concluded. Asked if she would like to add to the discus-sion, Dr. Kitagawa said, “It is so nice to havethis kind of discourse,” and wanted to knowhow these conversations, lectures and ideasare being included in the university and in-culcated in their courses. Sripad Puri Maha-raja replied, “We need to increase awarenessof our presence on campus, and disseminatethese ideas more widely. While everyone issincerely doing what they can to develop ourmission here, they also have jobs and respon-sibilities to their families. So we need thehelp of more qualified people to carry out ourservices to the universities. We also try tohold some of our meetings on campus, adver

tise in the local papers, distribute invitationsto the public, have a number of websites, ablog, and maintain several mailing lists forthose who show interest.”“I think many people may not understand thatwhat we are teaching is very scientific and maymisunderstand us as merely a religion. Thefailure to understand the unity of science andreligion contributes to that sort of misunder-standing, and I think it comes from both thereligious and scientific sections of society, “Sri-pad Puri Maharaja said.

“To what extent do you feel this as an entrypoint for having an interfaith dialogue to takeplace on the college campuses in order to givepeople a multi perspective on the different reli-gious aspects of the convergence of science withthe spiritual?” Dr. Kitagawa asked. “That isexactly what we want to do. We want to havesome type of conference here at the Universityon science and religion to show they are not inconflict with each other. But the problem is Idon’t have anyone to help me with this kind ofproject,” Sripad Puri Maharaja responded. “Iwill help you,” Dr. Kitagawa immediately in-terjected. “That will be greatly appreciated,”Sripad Puri Maharaja happily replied with abroad smile.With this our wonderful conclud-ed after was served and honored byall.

.

Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaja ki jaiSripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaj ki jai

Your humble

servant,

Kushum Devi Dasi

(New York)

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